Buck saw now that the situatioween Nand himself was siderably more serious than he had imagined. She exhibited unmistakable signs of a leaning in his dire. The leaning was acute, sometimes he thought she would fall, sometimes he thought she would not fall, sometimes he didnt care, and in every way tried to prove himself the man that he was. It meant dressing in unusual clothes and the breaking of old habits. But how could he shatter her dreams after all they had eogether? after all they had jointly seen and done since first identifying Cleveland as Cleveland? "Nancy," he said, "Im too old. Im not here is my son to sider, Peter." Her hand touched the area between her breasts where hung a decoration, datiimated from the World War I period -- that famous period!
The turbojet, their "ship," landed on its wheels. Buck wondered about the wheels. Why didnt they shear off when the aircraft landed so hard with a sound like thunder? Many had wondered before him. W art of the history of lighter-than-air-ness, you fool. It was Nancy herself, standing behind him in the exit line, who had suggested that they dan the landing strip. "To establish rapport with the terrain," she said with her distant ess, made more intense by the hot glare of the Edie vendors and s trees. They dahe b, the merihe dolce far e. It was glorious there orip, amid air rich with the incredible vitality of jet fuel and the sensate music of exhaust. Twilight was lowered onto the landing pattern, a twilight such as has never graced Cleveland before, or sihen brokeless laughter and the hurried trip to the hotel.
"I uand," Nancy said. And looking at her dispassionately, Buck jectured that she did uand, unscrupulous as that may sound. Probably, he sidered, I vinced her against my will. The man from Southern Rhodesia ered him in the dangerous hotel elevator. "Do you think you have the right to hold opinions which differ from those of President Kennedy?" he asked. "The President of your land?" But the party made up for all that, or most of it, in a curious way. The baby on the floor, Saul, seemed enjoyable, perhaps more than his wont. Or my wont, Buck thought, who knows? A Ray Charles record spun in the gigantic salad bowl. Buck dahe frisson with the painters wife Perpetua (although Nancy was alone, back at the hotel). "I am named," Perpetua said, "after the famous typeface designed by the famous English designer, Eric Gill, in an earlier part of our tury." "Yes," Buck said calmly, "I know that face." She told him softly the history of her affair with her husband, Saul Senior. Sensuously, they covered the ground. And then two ruly police gentlemeered the room, with the guests blang, aud romaine and radishes too flying for the exits, which were choked with grass.
Bravery was everywhere, but not here tonight, for the gods were whistling up their mandarin sleeves in the yellow realms where such matters are decided, food or ill. Patheti his servile graciousness, Saul explained what he could while the guests played telephone games in crimson anterooms. The poli, the flower of the Cleveland Force, accepted a drink and danced a police dances of custody and enfort. Magically the music crept bader the perforated Guam doors; it was a se to make your heart cry. "That Perpetua," Saul plained, "why is she treating me like this? Why are the lamps turned low and why have the notes I sent her beeurned unopened, covered with red Postage Due stamps?" But Buck had, in all seriousness