"How I should behave?"

She nodded.

His hands clasped hers. He told her how he should behave. He even offered to show her, without putting her to the trouble of tears.

"You mean," she said, "that you would forgive me? Well, forgive me, anyhow. I'm doing what I think is right about this old dinner. Perhaps I'm wrong about it; perhaps you're mistaken and I'm not absolutely perfect, but if I were, think what a lot of fun you would miss in changing me. And you know I never meant to abandon you for the whole evening. I'll get away at half past nine and we'll take a little turn."

So that was settled.



CHAPTER III

As they drove back she revealed another plan to him—she was taking him for a moment to see a friend of hers. He protested. He did not want to see anyone but herself, but Crystal was firm. He must see this woman; she was their celebrated parlor Bolshevist. Ben hated parlor Bolshevists. Did he know any? No. Well, then. Anyhow, Sophia would never forgive her if she did not bring him. Sophia adored celebrities. Sophia who? Sophia Dawson. The name seemed dimly familiar to Ben, and then he remembered. It was the name on the thousand-dollar check for the strike sufferers that had come in the day before.

They drove up an avenue of little oaks to a formidable palace built of gray stone, so smoothly faced that there was not a crevice in the immense pale facade. Two men in knee-breeches opened the double doors and they went in between golden grilles and rows of tall white lilies. They were led through a soundless hall, and up stairs so thickly carpeted that the feet sank in as in new-fallen snow, and finally they were ushered through a small painted door into a small painted room, which had been brought all the way from Sienna, and there they found Mrs. Dawson—a beautiful, worn, world-weary Mrs. Dawson, with one streak of gray in the front of her dark hair, her tragic eyes, and her long violet and black draperies—a perfect Sibyl.

Crystal did not treat her as a Sibyl, however. "Hullo, Sophie!" she said. "This is my brother-in-law's brother, Ben Moreton. He's crazy to meet you. You'll like him. I can't stay because I'm dining somewhere or other, but he's not."

"Will he dine with me?" said Mrs. Dawson in a wonderful deep, slow voice—"just stay on and dine with me alone?"

Ben began to say that he couldn't, but Crystal said yes, that he would be delighted to, and that she would stop for him again about half past nine, and that it was a wonderful plan, and then she went away.

Mrs. Dawson seemed to take it all as a matter of course. "Sit down, Mr. Moreton," she said. "I have a quarrel with you."

Ben could not help feeling a little disturbed by the way he had been injected into Mrs. Dawson's evening without her volition. He did not sit down.

"You know," he said, "there isn't any reason why you should have me to dine just because Crystal says so. I do want to thank you for the check you sent in to us for the strike fund. It will do a lot of good."

"Oh, that," replied Mrs. Dawson. "They are fighting all our battles for us."

"It cheered us up in the office. I wanted to tell you, and now I think I'll go. I dare say you are dining out, anyhow—"

Her eyes flashed at him. "Dining out!" she exclaimed, as if the suggestion insulted her. "You evidently don't know me. I never dine out. I have nothing in common with these people. I lead a very lonely life. You do me a favor by staying. You and I could exchange ideas. There is no one in Newport whom I can talk to—reactionaries."

"Miss Cord is not exactly a reactionary," said Ben, sitting down.

Mrs. Dawson smiled. "Crystal is not a reactionary; Crystal is a child," she replied. "But what can you expect of William Cord's daughter? He is a dangerous and disintegrating force—cold—cynical—he feels not the slightest public responsibility for his possessions." Mrs. Dawson laid her hand on her heart as if it were weighted with all her jewels and footmen and palaces. "Most Bourbons are cynical about human life, but he goes farther; he is cynical about his own wealth. And that brings me to my quarrel with you, Mr. Moreton. How could you let your brother spend his beautiful vigorous youth as a parasite to Cord's vapid son? Was that consistent with your beliefs?"

This attack on his consistency from a lady whose consistency seemed even more flagrant amused Ben, but as he listened he was obliged to admit that there was a great deal of good sense in what she had to say about David, whom she had met once or twice at the Cords'. Ben was too candid and eager not to ask her before long the question that was in his mind—how it was possible for a woman holding her views to be leading a life so opposed to them.

She was not at all offended, and even less at a loss for an answer. "I am not a free agent, Mr. Moreton," she said. "Unhappily, before I began to think at all, I had undertaken certain obligations. The law allows a woman to dispose of everything but her property while she is still a child. I married at eighteen."

It was a story not without interest and Mrs. Dawson told it well. There does not live a man who would not have been interested.

They dined, not in the great dining room downstairs, nor even in the painted room from Sienna, but in a sort of loggia that opened from it, where, beyond the shaded lights, Ben could watch the moon rise out of the sea.

It was a perfect little meal, short, delicious, and quickly served by three servants. He enjoyed it thoroughly, although he found his hostess a strangely confusing companion. He would make up his mind that she was a sincere soul captured by her environment, when a freshly discovered jewel on her long fingers would shake his faith. And he would just decide that she was a melodramatic fraud, when she would surprise him by her scholarly knowledge of social problems. She had read deeply, knew several languages, and had known many of the European leaders. Such phrases as "Jaures wrote me ten days before he died—" were frequent, but not too frequent, on her lips.

By the time Crystal stopped for him Ben had begun to feel like a child who has lost his mother in a museum, or as Dante might have felt if he had missed Virgil from his side. When he bade Mrs. Dawson good night, she asked him to come back.

"Come and spend September here," she said, as if it were a small thing. "You can work all day if you like. I sha'n't disturb you, and you need never see a soul. It will do you good."

He was touched by the invitation, but of course he refused it. He tried to explain tactfully, but clearly, why it was that he couldn't do that sort of thing—that the editor of Liberty did not take his holiday at Newport.

She understood, and sighed. "Ah, yes," she said. "I'm like that man in mythology whom neither the sky nor the earth would receive. I'm very lonely, Mr. Moreton."

He found himself feeling sorry for her, as he followed a footman downstairs, his feet sinking into the carpets at each step. Crystal in the blue car was at the door. She was bareheaded and the wind had been blowing her hair about.

"Well," she said, as he got in, "did you have a good time? I'm sure you had a good dinner."

"Excellent, but confusing. I don't quite get your friend."

"You don't understand Sophia?" Crystal's tone expressed surprise. "You mean her jewels and her footmen? Why, Ben, it's just like the fathers of this country who talked about all men being equal and yet were themselves slaveholders. She sincerely believes those things in a way, and then it's such a splendid role to play, and she enjoys that; and then it teases Freddie Dawson. Freddie is rather sweet if he's thoroughly unhappy, and this keeps him unhappy almost all the time. Did she ask you to stay? I meant her to."

"Yes, she did; but of course I couldn't."

"Oh, Ben, why not?"

This brought them once more to the discussion of the barrier. This time Ben felt he could make her see. He said that she must look at it this way—that in a war you could not go and stay in enemy country, however friendly your personal relations might be. Well, as far as he was concerned this was a war, a class war.

They were headed for the Ocean Drive, and Crystal rounded a sharp turn before she answered seriously:

"But I thought you didn't believe in war."

"I don't," he answered. "I hate it—I hate all violence. We—labor, I mean—didn't initiate this, but when men won't see, when they have power and won't stop abusing it, there is only one way to make—"

"Why, Ben," said Crystal, "you're just a pacifist in other people's quarrels, but as militaristic as can be in your own. I'm not a pacifist, but I'm a better one than you, because I don't believe in emphasizing any difference between human beings. That's why I want a League of Nations. I hate gangs—all women really do. Little girls don't form gangs like little boys. Every settlement worker knows that. I won't have you say that I belong to the other group. I won't be classified. I'm a human being—and I intend to behave as such."

Since she had left him she had been immersed again in her old life—her old friends—and the result had been to make her wonder if her experience with Ben had been as wonderful as it had seemed. When she stopped for him she had been almost prepared to find that the wild joy of their meetings had been something accidental and temporary, and that only a stimulating and pleasant friendship was left. But as soon as she saw that he really regarded their differences seriously, all her own prudence and doubt melted away. She knew she was ready to make any sacrifices for him, and in view of that all talk of obstacles was folly.

She stopped the car on the point of the island, with the open sea on one hand, the harbor on the other. In front of them the lightship was moving with a slow, majestic roll, and to the right was the long festoon of Narragansett lights, and as they stopped the lighted bulk of the New York boat appeared, making its way toward Point Judith.

His prolonged silence began to frighten her.

"Ben," she said, "do you seriously mean that you believe friendship between us is impossible?"

"Friendship, nothing," answered Moreton. "I love you."

He said it as if it had always been understood between them, as of course it had, but the instant he said it, he gave her a quick, appealing look to see how she would take so startling an assertion.

If Crystal had poured out just what was in her mind at that second she would have answered: "Of course you do. I've known that longer than you have. And can't you see that if I had had any doubt about its being true, I'd have taken steps to make it true? But, as I really did not doubt it, I've been able to be quite passive and leave it mostly to you, which I so much prefer."

But rigorous candor is rarely attained, and Crystal did not say this. In fact, for a few seconds she did not say anything, but merely allowed her eyes to shine upon him, with the inevitable result that at the end of precisely six seconds of their benevolent invitation he took her in his arms and kissed her. It was a very unprotected point, and several cars were standing not too far away, but Crystal, who had an excellent sense of proportion, made no objection whatever. She was being proved right in two important particulars—first, that she was a human being, and second, that there was no barrier between them. She was very generous about it. She did not say, "Where's your barrier now?" or anything like that; she simply said nothing, and the barrier passed out of the conversation and was no more seen.

Very soon, alleging that she must get home at the time at which she usually did get home from dinners, she took him back; but she soothed him with the promise of an uninterrupted day to follow.

Time—the mere knowledge of unbroken hours ahead—is a boon which real love cannot do without. Minor feelings may flourish on snatched interviews and stolen meetings, but love demands—and usually gets—protected leisure. The next day these lovers had it. They spent the morning, when Mr. Cord was known to be playing golf, at the Cords' house, and then when Mr. Cord telephoned that he was staying to luncheon at the club, if Crystal did not object (and Crystal did not), she and Ben arranged a picnic—at least Tomes did, and they went off about one o'clock in the blue car. They went to a pool in the rocks that Crystal had always known about, with high walls around it, and here, with a curtain of foam between them and the sea, for the waves were rising, they ate lunch, as much alone as on a desert island.

It was here that Ben asked her to marry him, or, to be accurate, it was here that they first began talking about their life together, and whether Nora would become reconciled to another woman about the flat.

The nearest approach to a definite proposal was Ben's saying:

"You would not mind my saying something about all this to your father before I go this evening, would you?"

And Crystal replied: "Poor father! It will be a blow, I'm afraid."

"Well," said Ben, "he told me himself that he liked me better than David."

"That's not saying much."

At this Ben laughed lightly.

He might have had his wrong-headed notions about barriers, but he was not so un-American as to regard a father as an obstacle.

"But, oh, Crystal," he added, "suppose you find you do hate being poor. It is a bore in some ways."

Crystal, who had been tucking away the complicated dishes of her luncheon basket, looked at Ben and lightly sucked one finger to which some raspberry jam from Tomes's supernal sandwiches had adhered.

"I sha'n't mind it a bit, Ben," she said, "and for a good reason—because I'm terribly conceited." He did not understand at all, and she went on: "I believe I shall be just as much of a person—perhaps more—without money. The women who really mind being poor are the humble-minded ones, who think that they are made by their clothes and their lovely houses and their maids and their sables. When they lose them they lose all their personality, and of course that terrifies them. I don't think I shall lose mine. Does it shock you to know that I think such a lot of myself?"

It appeared it did not shock him at all.



When they reached the house she established him in the drawing-room and went off to find her father.

She was a true woman, by which is meant now and always that she preferred to allow a man to digest his dinner before she tried to bring him to a rational opinion. But in this case her hands were tied. The Cords dined at eight—or sometimes a little later, and Ben's boat left for New York at half past nine, so that it would be utterly impossible to postpone the discussion of her future until after dinner. It had to be done at once.

Crystal ran up and knocked at his bedroom door. Loud splashings from the adjoining bathroom were all the answer she got. She sat down on the stairs and waited. Those are the moments that try men's and even women's souls. For the first time her enterprise seemed to her a little reckless. For an instant she had the surprising experience of recognizing the fact that Ben was a total stranger. She looked at the gray-stone stairway on which she was sitting and thought that her life had been as safe and sheltered as a cloister, and now, steered by this total stranger, she proposed to launch herself on an uncharted course of change. And to this program she was to bring her father's consent—for she knew very well that if she couldn't, Ben wouldn't be able to—in the comparatively short time between now and dinner. Then, the splashing having ceased, the sound of bureau drawers succeeded, and Crystal sprang up and knocked again.

"That you, Peters?" said an unencouraging voice. (Peters was Mr. Cord's valet.)

"No, dear, it's I," said Crystal.

"Oh, come in," said Mr. Cord. He was standing in the middle of the room in his shirt sleeves and gloomily contemplating the shirt he wore. "What's this laundress, anyhow? A Bolshevist or a pastry-cook?" he said. "Did you ever see anything like this shirt?"

Crystal approached and studied the shirt. It appeared to her to be perfectly done up, but she said: "Yes, dear, how terrible! I'll pack her off to-morrow, but you always look all right whatever you wear; that's some comfort." She saw that even this hadn't done much good, and, going to the heart of the problem, she asked, "How did your golf go?"

Mr. Cord's gloom gathered as he answered, with resignation, "Oh, all right."

His manner was exactly similar to Ben's in his recent moment of depression, and not unlike McKellar's when he had explained what he suffered under the good Lord's weather.

"Is Eddie's game any better?" asked Crystal, feeling her way.

"No," cried her father, contemptuously. "He's rotten, but I'm worse. And golf-clubs, Crystal! No one can make a club any more. Have you noticed that? But the truth of the matter is, I'm getting too old to play golf." And Mr. Cord sat down with a good but unconscious imitation of a broken old man.

Of course Crystal swept this away. She scolded him a little, pointed out his recent prowess, and spoke slightingly of all younger athletes, but she really had not time to do the job thoroughly, for the thought of Ben, sitting so anxious in the drawing-room alone, hurried her on.

"Anyhow, dear," she said, "I've come to talk to you about something terribly important. What would you say, father, if I told you I was engaged?"

Mr. Cord was so startled that he said, what was rare for him, the first thing that came into his head:

"Not to Eddie?"

The true diplomatist, we have been told, simply takes advantage of chance, and Crystal was diplomatic. "And suppose it is?" she replied.

"I should refuse my consent," replied her father.

Crystal looked hurt. "Is there anything against Eddie," she asked, "except his golf?"

"Yes," answered her father, "there are two of the most serious things in the world against him—first, that he doesn't amount to anything; and second, that you don't love him."

"No," Crystal admitted, "I don't, but then—love—father, isn't love rather a serious undertaking nowadays? Is it a particularly helpful adjunct to marriage? Look at poor Eugenia. Isn't it really more sensible to marry a nice man who can support one, and then if in time one does fall in love with another man—"

"Never let me hear you talk like that again, Crystal," said her father, with a severity and vigor he seldom showed outside of board meetings. "It's only your ignorance of life that saves you from being actually revolting. I'm an old man and not sentimental, you'll grant, but, take my word for it, love is the only hope of pulling off marriage successfully, and even then it's not easy. As for Eugenia, I think she's made a fool of herself and is going to be unhappy, but I'd rather do what she has done than what you're contemplating. At least she cared for that fellow—"

"I'm glad you feel like that, darling," said Crystal, "because it isn't Eddie I'm engaged to, but Ben Moreton. He's waiting downstairs now."

Mr. Cord started up—his eyes shining like black flames.

"By God! Crystal," he said, "you sha'n't marry that fellow—Eugenia—perhaps—but not you."

"But, father, you said yourself, you thought he was a fine—"

"I don't care what I said," replied Mr. Cord, and, striding to the door, he flung it open and called in a voice that rolled about the stone hall: "Mr. Moreton, Mr. Moreton! Come up here, will you?"

Ben came bounding up the stairs like a panther. Cord beckoned him in with a sharp gesture and shut the door.

"This won't do at all, Moreton," he said. "You can't have Crystal."

Ben did not answer; he looked very steadily at Cord, who went on:

"You think I can't stop it—that she's of age and that you wouldn't take a penny of my money, anyhow. That's the idea, isn't it?"

"That's it," said Ben.

Cord turned sharply to Crystal. "Does what I think make any difference to you?" he asked.

"A lot, dear," she answered, "but I don't understand. You never seemed so much opposed to the radical doctrine."

"No, it's the radical, not the doctrine, your father objects to," said Ben.

"Exactly," answered Mr. Cord. "You've put it in a nutshell. Crystal, I'm going to tell you what these radicals really are—they're failures—everyone of them. Sincere enough—they want the world changed because they haven't been able to get along in it as it is—they want a new deal because they don't know how to play their cards; and when they get a new hand, they'll play it just as badly. It's not their theories I object to, but them themselves. You think if you married Moreton you'd be going into a great new world of idealism. You wouldn't. You'd be going into a world of failure—of the pettiest, most futile quarrels in the world. The chief characteristic of the man who fails is that he always believes it's the other fellow's fault; and they hate the man who differs with them by one per cent more than they hate the man who differs by one hundred. Has there ever been a revolution where they did not persecute their fellow revolutionists worse than they persecuted the old order, or where the new rule wasn't more tyrannical than the old?"

"No one would dispute that," said Ben. "It is the only way to win through to—"

"Ah," said Cord, "I know what you're going to say, but I tell you, you win through to liberal practices when, and only when, the conservatives become converted to your ideas, and put them through for you. That's why I say I have no quarrel with radical doctrines—they are coming, always coming, but"—Cord paused to give his words full weight—"I hate the radical."

There was a little pause. Crystal, who had sunk into a low chair, raised her eyes to Ben, as if she expected a passionate contradiction from him, but it did not come.

"Yes," he said, after a moment, "that's all true, Mr. Cord—with limitations; but, granting it, you've put my side, too. What are we to say of the conservative—the man who has no vision of his own—who has to go about stealing his beliefs from the other side? He's very efficient at putting them into effect—but efficient as a tool, as a servant. Look at the mess he makes of his own game when he tries to act on his own ideas. He crushes democracy with an iron efficiency, and he creates communism. He closes the door to trade-unionism and makes a revolution. That's efficiency for you. We radicals are not so damned inefficient, while we let the conservatives do our work for us."

"Well, let it be revolution, then," said Cord. "I believe you're right. It's coming, but do you want to drag a girl like Crystal into it? Think of her! Say you take her, as I suppose a young fellow like you can do. She'd have perhaps ten years of an exciting division of allegiance between your ideas and the way she had been brought up, and the rest of her life (for, believe me, as we get older we all return to our early traditions)—the rest of her life she'd spend regretting the ties and environment of her youth. On the other hand, if she gives you up she will have regrets, too, I know, but they won't wreck her and embitter her the way the others will."

Ben's face darkened. No man not a colossal egotist could hear such a prophesy with indifference. He did not at once answer, and then he turned to Crystal.

"What do you think of that?" he asked.

To the surprise of both men, Crystal replied with a laugh. "I was wondering," she said, "when either of you would get round to asking what I thought of it all."

"Well, what do you think?" said Cord, almost harshly.

Crystal rose, and, slipping her arm through his, leaned her head on the point of her father's shoulder—he was of a good height. "I think," she said, "you both talk beautifully. I was so proud of you both—saying such profound things so easily, and keeping your tempers so perfectly" (both brows smoothed out), "and it was all the more wonderful because, it seemed to me, you were both talking about things you knew nothing about."

"What do you mean?" burst from both men with simultaneous astonishment.

"Ben, dear, father doesn't know any radicals—except you, and he's only seen you twice. Father dear, I don't believe Ben ever talked five minutes with an able, successful conservative until he came here to-day."

"You're going to throw me over, Crystal?" said Ben, seeing her pose more clearly than he heard her words.

"No," said Mr. Cord, bitterly, "she's going to throw over an old man in favor of a young one."

"You silly creatures," said Crystal, with a smile that made the words affectionate and not rude. "How can I ever throw either of you over? I'm going to be Ben's wife, and I am my father's daughter. I'm going to be those two things for all my life."

Ben took her hand. She puzzled him, but he adored her. "But some day, Crystal," he said, "you will be obliged to choose between our views—mine or your father's. You must see that."

"He's right," her father chimed in. "This is not a temporary difference of opinion, you know, Crystal. This cleavage is as old as mankind—the radical against the conservative. Time doesn't reconcile them."

Again the idea came to her: "They do love to form gangs, the poor dears." Aloud she said: "Yes, but the two types are rarely pure ones. Why, father, you think Ben is a radical, but he's the most hidebound conservative about some things—much worse than you—about free verse, for instance. I read a long editorial about it not a month ago. He really thinks anyone who defends it ought to be deported to some poetic limbo. Ben, you think my father is conservative. But there's a great scandal in his mental life. He's a Baconian—"

"He thinks Bacon wrote the plays!" exclaimed Ben, really shocked.

"Certainly I do," answered Mr. Cord. "Every man who uses his mind must think so. There is nothing in favor of the Shakespeare theory, except tradition—"

He would have talked for several hours upon the subject, but Crystal interrupted him by turning to Ben and continuing what she had meant to say:

"When you said I should have to choose between your ideas, you meant between your political ideas. Perhaps I shall, but I won't make my choice, rest assured, until I have some reason for believing that each of you knows something—honestly knows something about the other one's point of view."

"I don't get it, exactly," said Ben.

She addressed Mr. Cord.

"Father," she went on, "Ben has a little flat in Charles Street, and an old servant, and that's where I'm going to live."

Her father, though bitterly wounded, had regained his sardonic calm. "Perhaps," he said, "you'll bring him up to Seventy-ninth Street for Sunday dinner now and then."

Crystal shook her head. "No, dear," she said. "That isn't the way it's going to be. As soon as I get settled and have time to look about me, I shall take another little flat for you. You will live with us, for a few months in the winter, and get to know Ben's friends—his gang, as you would say—get to know them not as a philanthropist, or an employer, or an observer, but just as one of our friends—see if they really are the way you think they are. And then, in March you shall go off to Palm Beach or Virginia just as usual."

"That's a fine idea," said Mr. Cord, sarcastically. "Do you realize that I shall hardly survive your marriage with the editor of Liberty. I shall be kicked off—requested to resign from half a dozen boards for having such a son-in-law—"

"There's freedom for you," said Ben.

"And," continued Mr. Cord, "if it were known that I consented to the marriage, and actually consorted with such fellows! You must realize, Crystal, that most of the most influential men in the country think the way Eddie does. Half my boards are composed of older Eddies."

"You'll do better to resign from them, then," said Crystal.

Ben had been very much struck by Crystal's suggestion.

"Really, Mr. Cord," he said, "I believe that is a great idea of Crystal's. I really believe if capital had more idea of the real views of labor—as you said, you eventually adopt all our ideas, why wouldn't an intimate knowledge of individuals hurry that process?"

"Simply because I should lose all influence with my own people by merely investigating you in a friendly spirit."

"Glory!" exclaimed Ben, with open contempt for such people. "Think of penalizing the first honest attempt to understand!"

"You see the point of my plan, don't you, Ben?" said Crystal.

"You bet I do."

"That's wonderful," she answered, "for you've only heard half of it. In July, August, and September, we will come here to Newport, and you will get to understand father's—"

"Hold on," cried Ben, "just a moment. That is absolutely impossible, Crystal. You don't understand. The paper couldn't keep me a day if I did that."

"Ha!" cried Mr. Cord, coming suddenly to life. "There's freedom for you!"

"That would be very cruel of the owners, Ben, but if they did—"

"It wouldn't be cruel at all," said Moreton. "They wouldn't have any choice. I should have lost all influence with my readers, if it were known—"

"Glory!" said Mr. Cord. "Think of penalizing the first honest attempt to understand the capitalistic class!"

Ben stood silent, caught in the grip of an intellectual dilemma which he felt every instant would dissolve itself and which didn't.

Crystal for the first time moved away from her father. "Those are my terms," she said. "I stay with the man who agrees to them, and if you both decline them—well, I'll go off and try and open the oyster by myself."

There was a long momentous pause, and then Tomes's discreet knock on the door.

"Mr. Verriman on the telephone, madam."

"I can't come," said Crystal. "Ask him to send a message."

"Don't you see, Crystal, what your plan would do?" said her father. "Either it would make Moreton a red revolutionist and me a persecuting Bourbon, or else it would just ruin us both for either of our objectives."

"It won't ruin you for my objectives," said Crystal, "and women are more human, you know, than men."

Another knock at the door. Tomes's voice again:

"Mr. Verriman wishes to know if he might dine here this evening?"

"No," said Cord, looking at Crystal.

Crystal raised her voice. "Certainly, Tomes. Say we shall be delighted to have him—at eight."

Both men turned to her.

"Why did you do that, Crystal? Verriman—here—to-night?"

Crystal did not answer—the identity of their tones, their words, and their irritation with her should have told them the answer, but didn't.

She knew that only opposition to Eddie and Eddie's many prototypes could weld her two men solidly together.

THE END