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CHAPTER ONE
 
He liked to drink sparingly after dinner, but now he realized he had let Chet Burney force three of his extra-potent highballs on him, and he guessed that they were the equivalent of six drinks at a bar. Chet believed firmly in the social prowess of alcohol, and when Chet and Alice gave a large cocktail party, there were many critical cases of remorse the next morning, and many earnest vows to be more careful at the next Burney affair.
 
Craig guessed that neither Chet nor Alice were aware that their parties were as much dreaded as anticipated. They seemed to feel that the noisier they were, the more successful. Also, such parties were breeders of the sort of anecdote Chet seemed to enjoy. “Remember the time Lew Carran decided Bunny’s skirt was too long?”
 
To Craig it had an embarrassingly collegiate flavor, and he had long since learned to keep a cautious eye on his glass when Chet was circulating with the Martini shaker.
 
But this was not a party. This was family, Chet and Alice had insisted. “Just come over for some drinks and dinner, Craig. The kids eat on the first shift. Then, after they’re out of the way, just the three of us.”
 
Now he realized he was slightly drunk. It was nearly midnight. Tomorrow was a working day. He knew he would feel grim in the morning. Yet he knew he should not blame Chet. His restlessness since Maura had left had made it a little easier to take that next drink. When you were not having a very good time, you hoped one more drink would help. The evening had been a little awkward merely because the four of them had been together so often. The absence of Maura made a great gap and caused unexpected silences. Craig knew that during all the time Maura would be away, from this Wednesday, the tenth of July, until she arrived back in New York, six hundred miles away, on Friday, the sixth of September, the Burneys would have him over from time to time. Not too often, as this evening had not been entirely comfortable, yet not so seldom that his terminal report to Maura would indicate thoughtlessness.
 
He realized that Chet was telling a story that Craig had heard many times before. Alice was sitting on the floor in front of Chet’s chair. She had her cheek against the side of his knee and, as Chet talked and played with her cropped hair with his blunt fingers, she wore an expression that was at once smug and dreamy. She was a small lean woman with coarse dark-red hair, delicate pointed features, large gray eyes. She was not particularly intelligent, but she had a good sense of fun. She was a superb cook, and despite three children, she kept her house gleaming. Yet the clothes she selected for herself and the make-up she used were never quite right for her. This lack of style had absolutely no effect on the impression she made on most men, and the impression she so obviously made on her husband. This was a wife who, in spite of a boyish body, in spite of an absence of the mannerisms of the temptress, was obviously very capable and very eager. And with equivalent emphasis, those favors were available only to Chet Burney.
 
Chet was a big-chested blond man with a boyish face that made him look younger than thirty-nine, quite a bit younger. Craig, who knew that Chet and he were only three weeks apart in age, was sometimes faintly indignant about Chet’s air of youthfulness. Yet, of late, the blond hair was thinning more rapidly, and the paunch was becoming more than a hint. In another ten years the situation would be reversed.
 
Chet Burney was a lawyer, a junior partner in the firm of Tolle, Rufus, Kell and Burney. The firm made a speciality of corporation law and, on local problems that were not of a serious nature, was quite often retained by the firm where Craig worked, the Quality Metal Products Division of the U.S. Automotive Corporation. Burney was a bluff and friendly man who liked to tell people that if it wasn’t for lawyers, the law would be a very easy thing to understand.
 
Burney played good golf and had a weakness for important-looking automobiles. Craig suspected that when Chet and Alice had bought this house in the River Woods section, he had taken on more than he should have. But the odds were good that Chet’s income would continue to improve. His political connections were good, and he was well-liked.
 
Chet was telling the story Craig had heard so many times. “Well, old Junior Thompson, the well-known wolf, had this little girl right here come to the house party on a football week end. We were playing Cornell that week end. This little Alice here was trying to look all grown up, but I found out she’d just turned seventeen and she was only a junior in high school, and she’d done some plain and fancy lying to get her people to let her come along. After I got a good look, I moved right in, and knowing how much of a chance she would have stood with a sharp operator like Thompson, I’ll bet you I wasn’t more than ten minutes too soon. Junior was sure sore. But I had me a date for that week end too. Big ole blonde girl from Smith. Name of Nancy. Nancy and Junior stayed sore for all of twelve minutes when we suggested we trade off, and you know …”
 
Craig stopped listening. It had happened a long time ago. He had heard it before. Once he had asked Maura on the way home why in the world Chet, who wasn’t usually boring, kept repeating that very ordinary yarn of how they met. Maura thought a moment and said, “He never tells it unless she’s so close he can touch her. Then he seems to be talking to her more than to anyone else. I think it’s a sort of love play with them. You can almost hear her purr.”
 
Craig watched her. She had a sleepy, flushed, almost humid look. The heavy fingers toyed with her hair. She arched her back in an almost imperceptible way, and Craig felt a sharp sudden thrust of envy and desire. Not specific desire for Alice. Nor was it desire for Maura. It was not as specified. It was a desire for flesh, for togetherness, in which identity seemed of small importance.
 
When Chet was through and tried to give him another drink, Craig said he had to go. They told him he shouldn’t run off so early, but their protestations were more glib than sincere. They walked out to his car with him. The July night was sticky. A passenger liner moved slowly overhead at about four thousand, running lights blinking, curving towards the big airfield on the other side of Still River.
 
“When Maura gets back, Craig, you two ought to consider moving out here. The new school will be going up next year. No through traffic. Playgrounds. No city taxes. It’s great for dogs and cats and kids. And there’s a damn fine bunch out here.”
 
“It’ll be even handier when the new shopping section is finished,” Alice said.
 
“It’s a little out of my reach, kids,” Craig said.
 
“I think you ought to grab a good lot, though, before those go out of sight. Then you’ve got it, and when you get ready to change, you’ve got a place to build. You know, I can go from my garage to the Club in twelve minutes.”
 
“And you ought to take twenty. You drive too fast,” Alice said.
 
“We’ll talk about it when Maura comes back,” Craig said. “But, you know, she likes that old place. I guess because it’s got all the inconveniences she’s always been used to.”
 
“If you want to make your limey bride feel really at home, you ought to have the central heating ripped out,” Chet said, laughing.
 
“If I just leave it alone, it’ll rust away. Look, thanks for a wonderful dinner and a good evening. I’ve enjoyed it.”
 
“And we’ll ask you again real soon,” Alice promised. “I hate to think of you rattling around in that place. You should go to a hotel. It must be grim.”
 
“It’s pretty empty, but I’m beginning to adjust. She’s been gone, let me see, two weeks and four days.”
 
“Are you going to take a vacation?” Chet asked.
 
“Not much point in it while she’s gone. I’m taking a late one. In October. That’ll give her time to get settled in, and we’ll get somebody to stay with Penny and Puss while we go away and get re-acquainted.”
 
“Those parts you read us were charming, Craig. Do let us know when you get another letter like that,” Alice said.
 
They said good night, and he thanked them again and drove off. He drove down the whispering smoothness of asphalt, around the carefully engineered curves, past the dark homes which made those severely architectured lines against the night sky, lines that spoke of the wonders inside—the stainless steel, the immaculate plastics, the deodorized flesh. As he turned down another grade, moving down toward the city, he saw out of the corner of his eye, for just an instant, a child’s tricycle on a high curve of lawn, outlined against the night-pink halo of the city. It stood contemplative under the sky, a small, lonely, whimsical figure, half insect, half Martian. He felt a quick touch at his heart and said to himself, you are drunk, my friend, and damn close to bathos. Your mind reaches out, seeking any possible excuse for a crying jag.
 
As he did not trust his reflexes, he drove quite slowly. The car was a three-year-old Ford station wagon, maroon with white trim. Lately there had been odd sounds in the motor, and he kept forgetting to have the car checked.