Chapter 2

Emperor Shah Jehan had blinded the architect of the Taj Mahal so that the designer might never create a structure exceeding its beauty. Nadine suspected that whoever had perpetrated the Ryner house had probably shot himself voluntarily afterward, to prevent a recurrence.

To be just, the unfortunate architect had worked under the tasteless supervision of Mabel's parents, now deceased. And Mabel Weidberger Ryner, upon inheriting the monstrosity, had perpetuated the memory of Heinrich and Alma Weidberger with additions reflecting their gauche love for the massive, the ostentatious and the expensively hideous.

The house was constructed from smooth and shiny chrome-yellow bricks. It was an overgrown Chicago "bungalow," poking out in a pregnant rotunda at the front, so that Nadine always approached it with an expectant air; at any moment it threatened to give birth to a litter of horrid little replicas of itself. Intricate masterpieces of Czechoslovakian stained glass accented the windows bounding the circular elevation. They were framed by rococo cement-work, a pattern including angels, grape clusters and swags.

There was a broad, curved, concrete stairway at the side of the windowed belly. Flanked by brick and concrete walls, with gargantuan cement urns to accent each five-step rise, the stairway led to a wide double door. The bronze door knocker, flattened for functional purposes, was probably the most immense Liberty Bell west of Philadelphia.

"I used to wonder what people meant," Paul observed as he ushered Nadine and Leila up the steps, "when they said a girl was built like a brick outhouse."

"You didn't think there were any brick outhouses?" Leila asked. "Well, you know now. Wouldn't you swear Mabel only came into money two weeks ago? Three generations of loot and she's still a noveau riche peasant. Going to the supermarket at 10 a.m. with a cerulean mink slung over a little bargain number she couldn't resist in Weibolt's basement. God, all those trips abroad wasted!"

"You're biting the hand that supports us," Paul warned affably.

It was not a butler or a maid who admitted them, but Mabel, short, plump, hopelessly and obviously fortyish, a ludicrous red taffeta cocktail dress completely washing out the greyish-blond hair and the pale-lashed blue eyes. She looked more nervous than her husband had appeared earlier in the day.

Mabel sounded grateful. "Am I glad you're here!"

"Things don't swing until the Whittens make it," Leila said. "You tell people they're coming to your party, it's like offering trade stamps."

Mabel surveyed Nadine fondly. "Ain't it the truth?"

Party noises floated up a basement stairway descending from a hallway at the center of the house. "Everybody in the bierstube?" Paul asked.

"Yeah, downstairs. Go ahead, Paul. The girls can leave their stuff in my bedroom."

"I'll go down now," Leila said. "I'm on the verge of a cold and I'd better keep this shoulder thing on."

Paul and Leila started for the basement and Nadine accompanied Mabel to her rose-printed-quilted-satin-Chinese-modern-Louis-Quatorze bedroom.

"You're looking lovely," Nadine said. No one could doubt she meant it. "Turn around ... let me see the back."

Mabel executed a wadding model's half-turn. The dress boasted a strapless top, revealing an expanse of flouncing, albino-white flesh. A lavish red taffeta bustle of bows, centered with a velvety black orchid, guaranteed attention to Mabel's rear end.

"Whew! I've never seen anything like it."

"That's what Wardy said." (Mabel insisted upon the affectionate bastardization of Warren's name.) "But I'm not so sure he liked it. I had it made."

"You must have!" Nadine said. She tossed a simple wool stole across the garish bedspread.

Mabel was almost pathetic in her desire for Nadine's approval. "If you like it, it's okay," she said. "I was afraid I'd look too ... you know. Racy."

"Well, you don't, Mabel."

"I nearly didn't get up the nerve to wear it. And then everything went wrong, the way it does. I tried those little hors d'oeuvres you made that time ... but they didn't come out good. I got Essie to do everything else, I was so nervous."

"But why? We're all old friends."

"There's some new people. And, listen, Nadine...." Mabel's eyes seemed to water suddenly. Until then, Nadine hadn't noticed that the older woman's eyelids, normally puffy, looked pinkish and swollen. "I shouldn't be holding you up here, but I'm...."

"Mabel, is something wrong?" Nadine laid a comforting hand on a trembling shoulder.

"I wouldn't say this to anybody but you. You wouldn't repeat it ... and you're the only one. Wardy's been acting ... funny."

"Funny?"

"He doesn't hear half of what I say to him. And then he can't do enough for me. You know when a man acts that way, he's got something bothering him."

"He has a big responsibility," Nadine said.

"Yeah, but that's not it. He's not the romantic type. When you got two kids almost in high school ... oh, say, I forgot to call you up and say thanks...."

"For what?"

"Those stamps you sent Junior when he was home with the G.I.'s last week. He says you'd have to know your stuff to pick out stamps he doesn't have already."

You didn't really have to know a thing, Nadine thought. You merely blew a whole afternoon with an expert old philatelist who ran a downtown stamp shop. "I'm glad Junior liked them. You were telling me Warren isn't romantic."

"Well, not like he is lately. After you've been married as long as Wardy and me, you don't go around acting mushy. Not in the afternoon, anyway."

Nadine laughed. "You're having a second honeymoon."

"Maybe Wardy is. I'm not." Mabel hovered on the brink of tears. "He's a good man. I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea. But there's this young hotcha at the office, she goes around showing her rump in tight dresses. I saw her there the other day. Crosses her legs, you can see what she had for supper. This afternoon I called the brewery, Wardy was on his way home, my cousin Artie told me. Then I got suspicious. I don't know why. Just the way Wardy's been acting. So funny. So I called agin, but I changed my voice and I asked the switchboard girl if I could talk to this other girl in accounting."

"Oh, Mabel!"

"Don't 'oh, Mabel.' Wait'll I tell you the rest. This Evelyn wasn't at work. She had the flu. Flu, my ass!"

"You don't actually think Warren was out with this girl?"

"What would you think? If Paul started to act different?"

"I'd ask him where he'd been. Did you?"

"No. I didn't say anything. I didn't want a fight. We never had a fight ... I sure wouldn't want one the day we got all this company coming."

Nadine pressed the puffy shoulder reassuringly. "You silly goose! Warren was at our house this afternoon."

"Don't just make up a story to make me feel good ... "

"He was! He wanted to return samples on the new labels the agency's making up. He left them for Paul, but you know me. We got to talking about one thing and another."

"You wouldn't kid me, Nadine?"

"Honey, I'll swear he was at the house. You're overworking your imagination."

Mabel released a shuddering sigh. "I guess I have a pretty good one."

"You certainly do! Warren's hardly the type to chase some office floozy."

"I guess he wouldn't."

"I know damned well he wouldn't."

Before the evening was over, Nadine would have to acquaint Warren with the facts. The story would throw a scare into him. He would be more discreet in the future ... and more appreciative. Rare moments were always treasured. And, ironically, she hadn't even had to lie to poor Mabel!

"Thanks," Mabel was saying. "I'll be able to have a good time now."

"In that dress?" Nadine smiled. "I should think so."

Mabel laughed her delight and preceded Nadine down the stairs to the Ryner recreation room, radiant in her newly affirmed confidence. The black velvet orchid waggled back and forth with every step, the red taffeta swished seductively.

Nadine let her hostess rustle into the crowd. Then she took a five-beat pause, lifted her head, smiled, and made an entrance worthy of Empress Eugenie descending the marble staircase at a court ball.

Nadine's eyes swept carelessly over the Weidberger clan; Mabel's uncounted and uniformly dull relatives whose diverse abilities kept the brewery going. She waved casually and exchanged quips with the neighborhood groups. As usual, they had divvied themselves into cliques, the more intellectual set

(advertising, merchandising, medical, sprinkling of professional talents) eyeing what they considered the dimwits with supercilious patronage, and the contracting-merchant-manufacturing group regarding the former as unbearably snobbish and suspiciously egghead. Mabel Ryner either didn't know oil from water or she had a firm faith that Weidberger beer was an infallible catalyst.

Warren presided behind a long oak bar, hand-carved in Germany and imported at a cost that would have curled Bismarck's moustache. Nadine made her way toward an unoccupied barstool. A hand closed over her arm. "I've been waiting for you," Vince murmured.

"I was going over to get a drink."

"It'll wait." She was in his arms, dancing. Neither time nor liquor had obliterated all of the fiery Latin charm that had fascinated her at the outset. Vince was still dark and brooding. He still yearned to be a songwriter, he still wrote scorching poetry. This close to him, she always considered Vince Alle-gretti worth keeping.

Champagne music bubbled from the juke box. Vince was high on something less bubbly. "Why don't I ever see you anymore?"

"You know how it is, Vince."

"How is it?" Candlelight reflected in the dark and hungry eyes.

"I can't get away."

"You used to get away."

"I can't always."

"When?"

"I don't know."

"You could try. Jesus, I think about some of those times ... I get physically sick."

"Vince, don't hold me so close. People...."

"To hell with people."

"You aren't being very poetic."

"And to hell with being poetic. Let's get out of here. Remember the time we left Stroud's party? Went to my place?"

"New Year's Eve. That was four years ago. Look, I'll call you."

"You won't. You keep saying you will, but you won't."

"Vince, I wish you wouldn't drink. It used to be fun being with you when you didn't drink."

"I've got to do something."

"Quit drinking."

"You know how I feel about you. Hell, you know I'd tell Gwen where to go tomorrow if...."

Lawrence Welk wound up the record and Nadine excused herself. "I've got to say hello to Warren."

"What for?"

"It's polite."

"Emily Post is dead, I'm still alive!" Vince shuffled toward the piano. Maybe someone would ask him to play. Maybe the crowd would decide to sing and he'd be occupied for the rest of the evening.

Where was this new character? What was his name? Monty something. Nadine reached the bar to find Warren's eyes probing deeply into hers. She w-edged herself into a space between the bar and an Allegretti pinball machine. Panther Hunt, it was called.

"Long time no see," she smiled at Warren.

He leaned over the wide expanse of mahogany. Big, affable Warren. Their affair terrified him, yet it was good for him to broaden his horizons, Nadine thought.

For everybody's benefit, Warren said, "Well, hello! Haven't seen you in ages, Nadine."

"Liar," Nadine whispered.

Quietly, he asked, "Everything all right at home?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"I always worry."

"Worry about Mabel. She thinks you're having an affair with Evelyn."

"Who's Evelyn?"

"Girl at your office."

"Mabel told you that?"

"Just a few minutes ago. I told her you stopped at our house this afternoon."

Warren's face colored under the dim light. "Why'd you do that? Nadine, she'll start...."

"If she mentioned it, you came by to return the label drawings."

"I hate lying, Nadine."

"I hate it, too," Nadine said.

Someone at the far end of the bar called out, "I know you can brew beer, Ryner. But can you pour Scotch?"

"I'll talk to you later," Nadine said.

Her eyes had grown accustomed to the shadowy light. In a corner of the room, talking to Gwen Allegretti and obviously bored, was a man she had never seen before. Warren hadn't fixed her a drink, but she didn't need one. Slowly, she slipped from the barstool and headed for the corner table. Monty Carrell ... his name was Carrell, she remembered now, looked more promising than she had expected.

If he had worn a sign around his neck reading, "I don't belong with this crew," the fact could not have been more obvious.

Monty Carrell didn't look arty with a capital A, nor even aesthetic. And the sophisticated, man-who's-been-around effect was not dependent on the unseasonally tanned face, prematurely silvering hair or the precisely clipped moustache. If anything, these seemed like Hollywood affectations, like the distinctively Italian-cut suit. It was the cynical, half-amused boredom with which he was regarding Gwen Allegretti that marked him as an outlander in the provinces. He had Gwen pegged, all right; he probably had a mental file in which every woman he met was alphabetically classified.

Gwen, hypercharged, unsmiling and terribly unsexy for a well-packed redhead, spotted Nadine first.

And you could always depend upon Gwen to say something scintillating. "Well, look who's here."

"I'm looking," Monty said appreciatively. His grey eyes reduced Nadine to an airbrushed calendar-girl condition. He rose easily, the half-smile more animated now.

"You know each other, don't you?" Gwen asked.

"Not yet," Nadine said.

"Nadine, this is ... what did you say your name was?"

"Carrell. Monty Carrell," he said evenly.

"This is Nadine Whitten. I figured you knew each other. Her husband's...."

"Fortunate," Monty said graciously. He held out a chair and Nadine joined them, Monty settling himself beside her. "I'm trying to orient myself. Distinguish the clients' wives from agency wives."

"It's very simple," Nadine told him. "Mrs. Ryner owns Weidberger Beer, her husband runs the company, my husband's agency takes fifteen percent of their advertising budget."

He nodded. "I'm learning about industry tonight. Mrs....what did you say your name was?"

"Allegretti," Gwen told him.

"Yes. Mrs. Allegretti's been introducing me to the intricacies of the mechanized game business. Did you know that the distributor in southern Ohio orders six Jet Zoomers for every African Safari?"

"Jungle Killer," Gwen said seriously. "The Safari game's moving okay."

Monty smiled delightedly. "Isn't that exciting?"

"It's not exciting," Gwen said deprecatingly. "But it's a good business."

Mabel flounced toward them, her red bows wagging. "Everybody doing all right? Oh ... you don't have a drink, Nadine."

Gwen got up from her chair. "I'll get her one. I've got to go over and take one away from my husband."

"Oh, let him have his fun," Mabel said.

"He's had it," Gwen said. For Monty's benefit, she explained, "Vince drinks too much. It's the only fault he has, but I've got to watch him."

Nadine nodded solemnly. Some women have absolutely no imagination.

Gwen bristled off to find her husband and Mabel stood by, looking uncomfortable, but conversely, rather pleased with the world in general. Monty and Nadine sat quietly, waiting for her to leave. At least it seemed to Nadine that Monty shared her impatience. With men who didn't interest her, Nadine was in the habit of throwing up an impenetrable, impersonal smoke screen. Now, more than ever before, she felt the magnetic person-to-person pull of shared thoughts, common interests.

Stuck with carrying on the conversation, Mabel said, "So you're our new artist! It must be very interesting. Being an artist."

"It is," Monty assured her, unsmiling. "All those colors and everything."

"I bought some paintings when we were in Europe," Mabel continued bravely. "In fact, I brought back all kinds of ... art treasures. Have you seen the stuff upstairs?"

"No," Monty said. "Perhaps Mrs. Whitten will be kind enough to show me around."

"Would you, Nadine? I'd do it, but I kind of hate to walk out on everybody."

Nadine smiled and nodded. "I'll take him on the twenty-five cent tour."

"Yeah. Well, be sure he sees the paintings I got in Paris. I guess he's already seen the Munich beer steins." She turned away from them, flouncing like a schoolgirl toward another table. "I collect those."

Monty's eyes probed deeply as he addressed Nadine. "And what is it that you collect?"

"I'm only interested in functional objects."

"I've been watching you since you came down those stairs."

"And?"

"Even in the acquisition of functional objects, the collector should be more discriminating."

My God, he was talking her language! Nadine's own, un-intelligible-to-strangers native tongue!

She matched the amused, yet penetrating stare. "You think I should give more attention to quality."

Monty snapped open a silver cigarette box, made a cursory offer which she refused, and then flicked a lighter. His nonchalance was less natural than Paul's, but infinitely more dramatic. "Yes," he said, exhaling slowly. "I watched you talking with Mr. Ryner, too. Is that dark, moody character you danced with the husband of the pinball woman?"

"Vince Allegretti. Yes."

"You've put him in mothballs."

Nadine resisted laughter. "You're the most presumptuous man I've ever met."

"Because I'm assuming things about you? That isn't presumptuous, it's a matter of trained observation. Then, too, we recognize each other at sight, don't we? Some latent, instinctive, intuitive means of picking each other out of the herd."

"Like homosexuals," Nadine said. "Or Rotarians."

Monty's laughter was infectuous. "And once we spot another collector, it's hypocritical to shilly-shally, don't you think? We should do what all hobbyists do."

"Swap techniques? Oh, really!"

"Oh, I don't mean we have to exchange confidences. But inveterate liars, once they acknowledge each other, are usually paragons of truthfulness. I wouldn't know what sort of line to hand you, for instance. You've heard them all. I'm reduced to the most abject sincerity."

"How dull."

"It won't be," Monty assured her. He drained his glass ... Scotch on the rocks, probably. "To coin a truism ... there's always something new under the sun. Let's take the guided tour."

Vince Allegretti watched her leave the rathskeller. He was dancing with Gwen at the moment. Paul was lost in the shuffle. Maybe Warren was watching, too, from his post at the bar. Nadine walked up the narrow steps carelessly, conscious of the escort following. Playing it cool; only a cornball like Mabel would succumb to a provocative ascent at a time like this. Besides, Monty Carrell wasn't the type on whom you practiced the obvious. Like herself, he knew every trick in the books, which was, in itself, the most momentous challenge she had ever encountered. This would be like playing the game with all the cards exposed ... and knowing you had met your match.

They were in hysterics before they had made a complete swing of the Ryner house. Returning to the circle-ended living room, she was clinging to Monty's arm in a hilarious rapport at having viewed the result of unlimited money mated with nonexistent taste.

"The place was carpeted when Mabel took over," Nadine said. "So what could she do with the Aubusson rug she brought from France? What to do with the Sarouk from the market in Tabriz?"

"Lay it over the carpeting," Monty said. "What else?"

"And what would you do if you could afford an original Utrillo, a Klee and a Pollock? And you had already laid out a fortune for hand-blocked wallpaper with elegant gold roosters on it?"

"Hang the damned things up!" Monty roared. "Over the wallpaper!"

"But balance the whole sordid mess with a teakwood table. And have a lamp base made out of a Ming vase ... look at it closely, Monty. That's the real McCoy!"

Monty was suddenly serious. "It isn't funny, you know? Didn't you tell me this woman owns the Weidberger outfit?"

"Mabel? That's right. Warren Ryner's father was some sort of superintendent at the brewery. Warren and Mabel grew up together. I don't think he intended to spend the rest of his life running the Weidberger interests, but after he got out of the army...."

"I know. There was his childhood sweetheart and there was all that dreadful money. I can think of less inevitable romances."

"Paul...."

"That's your husband...."

"You know him. Anyway, Paul met Warren while they were overseas."

"And your husband got the Weidberger account. After the armistice, after the Ryner-Weidberger wedding and after Mr. Whitten associated himself with Oliver and Lindsay."

"It's Oliver, Lindsay and Whitten, now," Nadine said, rather proud of Paul at the moment. "Incorporated."

"I know. I was about to comment on the perilous instability of all our modest fortunes. Do you realize that your way of life, not to mention my new commission, hinges on the mood of a woman who'd have a lamp made from a genuine Ming vase? It's frightening, isn't it?"

"Oh, Mabel's dependable as the Rock of Gibraltar."

"Dangerous type," Monty advised authoritatively. "More like an inactive volcano. Are you sleeping with Ryner?"

"Why ... "

"Please. We aren't going to be coy with each other, remember?" Monty's hand found Nadine's.

In that moment she felt as though she had come face to face with herself in the street and she laughed out loud. She let her hand rest, confident and familiar, in Monty's.

"I asked you a question."

"I ignored it."

"No, you answered it. This clutter is about to fall down over me. What else is there to see?"

"Oh ... the piece de resistance. But we have to go into the garden for that."

"A fountain! A little marble boy from Italy, urinating on plastic water lilies made in Hong Kong."

"That's good, but not good enough. Come see."

Nadine led him back through the house. They crossed a glass enclosed solarium and stepped into a formally arranged garden. Tulips and creeping phlox bordered a flagstone walk over which a pattern of new sycamore leaves moved languidly, filtering light from a three-quarter May moon. For some unaccountable reason, they moved softly and Nadine almost whispered, "Years ago, the old Mr. Weidberger's brother was in another business."

"The plot thickens."

"He manufactured gearshift balls. Beautiful marbelized glass gearshift balls. And, naturally, some of them got broken. There were bound to be seconds."

"It always happens."

"So-not to take a total loss-Mabel's father had them imbedded in concrete. I wish we could turn on the lights. This thing has to be seen in broad daylight to be appreciated."

But they had reached the enormous cement birdbath by then ... a spectacle even in that uncertain light. Chunks of the multi-colored glass balls protruded from the cement at half-inch intervals. It was a bird bath roomy enough for South American condors and they stood before it for a few seconds with something like awe before they burst into laughter, Monty reaching out impetuously to sweep Nadine into his arms.

"To think of finding you here, in all this splendor!"

"Were you looking for me?" Nadine asked, mockingly innocent.

Monty held her fast, their faces close together, as though they might be searching for additional, irrefutable evidence of their peculiar oneness. He dropped the facetious tone, interviewing her now with the crisp, succinct directness of a newsman given two minutes with a celebrity.

"When it happens, do you go tick-tick-tick inside or do you crackle, like lightning?"

"Crackle."

"While it lasts, does it consume you?"

"Devastates me."

"Everything else excluded?"

"Everything else canceled."

"It's big."

"Tremendous."

"And you don't allow yourself to recognize any failings in the party of the second part?"

"He becomes flawless."

"You're completely subjective."

"While it lasts."

Monty assumed a thoughtful pose. "But you're handicapped. In your position, you'd almost have to consider consequences, wouldn't you?"

"Only technically. I have a theory that says everyone ought to do what everyone wants to do. There's no point complicating something as simple as that."

"Suppose what you want to do doesn't coincide with what someone else wants to do?"

Nadine pursed her lips, pondering. "I do it on my own time. And I'm careful. Even my very dearest friend only suspects me of being amoral. She couldn't possibly know it."

"That shocks me."

"My being amoral?"

"No, your having a, quote, 'very dear friend.' There's something you'll have to learn if you're going to elevate affairdom to a fine art. You can't have 'very dear friends'! Criminals, writers and collectors must recognize their total isolation from society. Aloneness is both the reward and the penalty of their vocation. They may observe, but they must participate with a form of omniscience. And never, under any circumstances, tell anyone anything. Otherwise they're obliterated by cops, plagiarists and jealous women. I'm assuming your friend is a woman."

"She's here tonight. I'm surprised you haven't made a play."

"I haven't met her. Married, I suppose?"

"Divorced."

"Oh, Lord," Monty sighed. "I avoid divorcees like the plague. They're invariably obsessed with drowning out the old marital mess by embroiling themselves in a new one. Why'd she shed Number One?"

"Leila didn't. Roy left her." Nadine smiled, pleased by the opportunity to prove herself Monty's equal. "He fell madly in love with me, and when I wouldn't run off to California with him, he went alone. Leila claims he was vulnerable."

"She doesn't know you...?"

"Of course not! Actually, she claims he asked her to go with him, to get away from 'that other woman's influence.' And Leila's version is that she'd lived here all her life and wasn't about to start running away from Roy's weaknesses. He's in Los Angeles now ... buried himself in some sort of electronics business. Successful, too, from the size of the checks he sends Leila every month."

"You're positive she doesn't know you were the femme fatale involved?"

"Please don't underestimate me, Monty. Discretion is my middle name. Leila and I are the best of friends."

Monty looked dubious. "She could be laying back, waiting for a chance to even the score."

"Oh, honestly!"

"What about the Allegretti woman?"

Monty had jumped to an astute conclusion about Nadine and Vince. Nadine didn't bother to deny it. "I try to avoid Vince now. And his wife is so wrapped up in that business of theirs, I suspect she takes Coin Machine World to bed with her as a substitute for sex."

Monty smiled. "I had a suspicion that if you opened her head, you'd see a big, red sign flashing 'Tilt!' What about Ryner's wife? My, but you've been a busy little bee!"

"She adores me."

"Good for you. I've always maintained that if you must brush against injured spouses, it's prudent to have them adore you."

All of which made it apparent that Monty Carrell had reduced these emotional excursions to a science. It increased his appeal, knowing that at long last here was a man from whom she could learn something. It was tiring to be always the teacher. Still, she couldn't have him thinking her naive...."I devote a great deal of time to cultivating wives. Even some I'd rather plow under."

"You're ... "

"And don't tell me I'm not like any woman you've ever known. I assume the fact, but if you say it, you'll spoil a perfect illusion."

They were smiling at each other openly now and Monty said, "Every woman is like no other woman I've ever known. I'll have to find a more original category for you. This could be terribly refreshing. Apply the crackle test."

Monty pulled her hard against his body, his mouth closing over hers expertly ... Nadine responding expertly, two undefeated chess-players deadlocked in a championship match, acutely aware of technique, but so enamored of the game itself that the competition became secondary to the experience. A frightening thought, Nadine realized (while she was still capable of the realization, before the surge of naked, un-technical emotion engulfed her completely). But the newness of it, the genuine, sweeping immediacy! There was no room for Nadine-the-director. She was conscious only of the imprint of his body, his lips, the exhilarating, bold, assured intimacy of his tongue, his hands exploring knowingly. That other Nadine might have sounded a warning, "Careful, careful...." But where was that detached observer who always stood apart to criticize, to judge, to call the plays like a sideline coach? She was breathing hard when he released her mouth; fitful breathing not unlike uncontrolled sobs.

Only long, silent minutes afterward did Nadine observe and find relief in the fact that she had had the same effect on Monty Carrell.

"We crackle together," he murmured in her ear. "In the interests of science we owe it to the world to develop...."

Nadine was restored, by then, to that rapier-like state in which she was, once again, sharply articulate. "A scientist sometimes learns as much from what isn't dropped into the test tube as what is. We might also forget we ever saw each other ... see what develops from that."

Anyone else would have argued the point. Or kissed her again before they returned to the house. Monty Carrell only laughed. His arm around Nadine's waist, he laughed the subdued, satisfied anticipatory laughter of a professional fighter challenged by a formidable adversary.

Nadine shared the reaction. It was the best, the most promising of all her beginnings, stirred to a pitch of delirium by their return to the Ryner's bierstube, where a sullen Vince Allegretti played the piano, where Warren Ryner and Paul, arms around each other buddy-style, blending their voices with a barbershop group, bellowed an amazingly ironic rendition of "I Want a Girl, Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad."

Nadine looked from one to the other, warm with an affection that blanketed them all, warmer still with an exclusive knowledge of each of them.

Warren, in her absence, had had a few, so that he was more affable than ever. He interrupted the vocals long enough to gesture a fraternal invitation to Monty. "Come on, Carrell. Join in!"

Perfect, perfect, perfect! Sometimes life was so crowded with the exciting sensation of fullness that it could scarcely be contained! Shrugging his shoulders, Monty Carrell joined the chorus.

Mabel's red taffeta rustled at Nadine's elbow. Solicitously, her words only slightly slurred, Nadine's hostess said, "Honey, you still haven't had a drink."

Leila Stroud, stationed on Paul's right (his other arm around her, too, buddy-style), stopped singing long enough to wink at Nadine. "She still doesn't need one."

Pleasingly, their harmony filled the room, Nadine singing with the rest:...." a good, old-fashioned girl with heart so true. One who loves nobody else but you...."

Nadine disregarded Monty's advice about 'very dear friends' and winked back at Leila. Any fool could see that Leila was terribly fond of her. Everyone was. Nadine glowed with the thought.

Perfect, perfect, perfect!