His eyes went to the media section and found her, as he had known they would. She was standing staring up at him. This time she did not smile or wave, nor did he. For a long moment their eyes held; then he turned away with an abrupt impatience and looked no more. But as clearly as though they had spoken face to face he knew they had exchanged their message.

The long day was far from over and much, he knew with a sudden shiver of both protest and anticipation, could happen before it drew, very late at night, at last to close.

They ate lunch, surrounded by fellow senators and their excited chattering guests. He and Linda were introduced many times to many people; a blur of names and faces swam by, all eager and flattered when they heard his name. Whatever his troubles in the Senate, apparently “Mark Coffin of California” retained its national recognition value. He realized, for the first time but certainly not the last, the curious duality of Washington vis-a-vis the country—the fact that Washington as seen from the country and Washington as seen from within were two very distinct and separate things. The intense inward preoccupations of the capital, the endless analyses of what he had heard his father-in-law refer to many times as Who-Struck-John, the minute and never-ceasing scrutinizings of personalities, issues, votes—were mostly lost on the country. Out there, only the tip of the iceberg showed. In a general way, people knew what was going on, were generally aware of major legislation, recognized certain personalities, such as his own, and gave them the tribute of a reasonable interest. But the day-to-day details, the tiny points on which official Washington danced like so many angels on the head of a pin, couldn’t matter less. He wondered, almost, why Washington let them matter so much: in the long perspective of history, even in the short-range perspective of the audience of their countrymen, they often didn’t.

Except, of course, that when you were in the thick of it, they did. The happy visitors were completely unaware of the appraising glances he received from colleagues, the subtle implication of “so-you’ve-just-been-spanked” that shone in many eyes and underlay many easygoing, cordial handshakes and smiles. He and Linda knew, the senators and representatives knew, the media knew; the number who did not know, or who if they did know, found it only a matter of the most minor passing interest, should have helped. It did not, because he knew, and those who mattered most to his life right now knew; and so the hurt, behind all the day’s excitement and the happy, cordial, fleeting greetings, remained.

It remained, he found, all through the increasingly overcast and increasingly chilly afternoon when they sat in the glassed-in congressional bleachers in front of the White House and watched the parade go by. They were reasonably warm but the day was turning toward snow again. The fact did not lighten his mood, even though he managed to go through all the necessary motions, including a big wave and standing greeting for the California float when its blasted palm trees and shivering blue-nosed citrus queens came down the Avenue.

Midway in the parade the President suddenly decided to leave his box and come along to greet the Congress; a gesture, from one whose capacity for symbolist politics was as great as that of a Jimmy Carter or a Jerry Brown, which received exactly the ecstatic, extensive coverage he knew it would. The cameras zoomed in and followed intently from face to face as he went along the standing, applauding rows of members and their wives, shaking hands, kissing the ladies, exchanging quick words of greeting. When he came to Mark and Linda he made an exaggerated pause, gave Linda an exaggerated kiss, gave Mark an exaggerated handshake, clapped him heartily on the shoulder and cried, “Mark! How great to see you at my little party! You make my day!”

For a moment Mark’s face darkened, but aided by Linda’s quick pressure on his arm, he recovered quickly, smiled, and managed to say quite matter-of-factly, “Thank you, Mr. President. We wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

“Come see me often, Mark,” the President urged. “Often!”

“When I’m invited, Mr. President,” Mark said evenly.

“You will be,” the President responded cheerily as he started to move along. “I’ll make a point of it!”

“Good,” Mark called after him. “I wouldn’t dream of just barging in.”

Which caused a lot of laughs all around as the President, professing not to hear, went happily on his wife-kissing, handshaking, backslapping way.

The parade did not conclude until four-thirty. They were unable to reach their car through the milling, shivering crowds until a little after five. They crawled home as fast as they could through the now lightly falling snow, had only time to refresh themselves for fifteen minutes or so while Linda changed into her gown, and then took off for the slow drive to Lyddie’s, arriving late around six-thirty. Half the guests were also late, their hostess announced cheerfully, so dinner would be delayed and they’d just enjoy themselves and get to the ball whenever they could. It was only a small party, anyway—perhaps eighty, for “a little buffet” and very informal, even if everybody was dressed to the nines—Lyddie herself, as always, drenched in jewels like a jolly little roly-poly, white-topped Christmas tree.

“Darlings,” she said later, settling down beside them, plate balanced on lap, “how are you standing the gaff?”

“Oh, that’s what you call this,” he said with a smile, gesturing to the glittering room filled with glittering people “—the gaff.”

“You know very well,” she said with mock severity, bright and beaming as a chipmunk, “what I mean. How are you standing being sent to the woodshed and given six lashes with His High and Mightiness’ razor strap?”

“Is that what’s happened to me?” he inquired. “Lyddie, dear, I would never have known.”

“Yes,” she said, frowning suddenly, “and I don’t like it! I shall tell him so, if we see him this evening.”

“You do that,” he said. “That will make everything all right.”

“Well, it will help your feelings, won’t it?” she asked with a shrewd little twinkle. He had to laugh, the first time he had done so since Chuck Dangerfield’s call about Foreign Relations yesterday afternoon.

“It will help them immensely,” he said, giving her a hug. “What does he do this evening, anyway, just circulate around from ball to ball?”

“That’s right,” she said, “and we’re going to, too. I bought six tickets to each of the six, just so I wouldn’t miss anything. Art’s going to join me, and your father and Jan Hardesty, Lin, so why don’t you two come along, too?”

“That’s very kind, Lyddie,” Linda said. “Mark can, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to drop out after we hit the first one.”

“I’ll come home with you,” he said. Her response was exactly what he knew it would be. He accepted it with a feeling of excitement and anticipation he hated himself for but could not resist.

“You most certainly will not!” she said. “I’m not going to spoil your whole evening for you just because—just because—”

“Just because I’ve spoiled yours?” he inquired with a grin that concealed a suddenly increased pulse rate and a frighteningly delicious sense of danger.

“Now, what does that mean?” Lyddie asked, as Linda blushed and laughed. “She can’t stay out late and spoil your evening, even though … you’ve spoiled hers. Now, how could you do that, I wonder? Ah-ha!” She planted a sudden kiss on Linda’s cheek. “I have it! Congratulations to you both!”

“For what?” he asked innocently as his wife continued to blush.

“For what, you sly young dog!” she said, rapping him on the knee with the antique ivory fan she always carried. “For getting this beautiful young thing pregnant, that’s what! Am I right?”

“Lyddie,” he said solemnly, “now I know why you are so loved and respected in Washington. ‘Feared’ is probably the better word. You know everybody’s secrets.”

“Just you remember that,” she admonished merrily, “and you’ll be quite safe. Quite safe. Now,” she added in a half-whisper, “as soon as I can get this free-loading crew off my hands—” And she was up like a bird, to clap her hands sharply and cry, “Okay, everybody! Time to go! Time to go! Don’t make the President wait, now! Everybody out! Everybody out, this minute!”

And laughing and talking and kissing and handshaking, her guests obediently departed with many pledges to see one another later in the evening.

Their first stop was the National Gallery, and there they lingered for about half an hour, managing to push their way through the hectic crush, past the boarded-over paintings and the scaffold-shrouded statues, to one of the bars. He did not see the face he was looking for and sternly told himself to stop looking for it. They stood awhile, chatting easily—Art Hampton and his father-in-law perfectly bland, Jan Hardesty cordial, nobody at all mentioning that they were with the Peck’s Bad Boy of the Senate, for which he was grateful—until the President entered, shortly after ten, to an enormous whoop and holler. A way was opened for him, he was hurried forward to an impromptu platform which he spurned in favor of climbing up on the carefully rough-hewn planks that supported a huge free-form swirl of steel loops and concrete.

“This looks like the Federal Government,” he said, draping an arm through one of its complicated convolutions. “God help me!” And was off, to a shout of laughter and a burst of applause, into a brief and graceful greeting that left them roaring the roof off as he left.

“He’s got it,” Jan Hardesty remarked. “There’s no doubt of that.”

“A most formidable man,” Art Hampton agreed thoughtfully, “but I dare say we can take his measure if we have to.”

“Do you think I can?” Mark inquired, prompted by some devil he could have killed with pleasure the moment he said the words.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Jim Elrod said.

“Daddy,” Linda interrupted nervously before the topic could go any further. “I think I’m going to have to go home now. I am feeling a little tired.”

“And I will take you,” Mark said, and this time she did not say no.

“Okay, if you want to.”

“I do,” he said, and knew he must mean it. Lyddie, as he had expected—feared—welcomed—immediately made everything easy.

“Let’s all take the car and run her home,” she said. “It will only take a few minutes and then we can go right on to the Sheraton-Park for the next party.”

“But—”

Linda put a hand on his arm.

“Lyddie,” she said gratefully, “you’re too kind. I wouldn’t want Mark to miss any of Inauguration Night, it’s always so exciting and so much fun. I think you have a great idea.”

The light snow had stopped, the threatened heavy storm had dissipated, the streets were almost completely deserted; they made surprisingly good time. While the others waited he took her up the slippery walk and stepped inside to say good night.

“You’ll be all right now?”

“Why, certainly,” she replied with a laugh. “For heaven’s sake, Mark Coffin! Go and have a good time.”

“You really want me to.”

She looked at him with a quick clear glance and he felt suddenly that she had read his thoughts all evening. But all she said, lightly, was,

“You’re in good company. Lyddie will chaperone you if you need it.”

“I won’t need it,” he promised solemnly, and again she laughed and gave him a quick, firm kiss.

“I know you won’t. I’m not worried. Now run along and have a good time.”

“Thanks,” he said, feeling a sudden heady lightness, “I will.”

And returned her kiss quickly and hurried back to the waiting car. She stood in the lighted doorway and waved as they drove off.

“Jim,” he said, giddy with Lyddie’s champagne, two scotch and sodas at the National Gallery, and his own urgent and increasingly less guilty sense of freedom, “what are you up to with the senator from Michigan, here? Do you two have something going?”

Jan Hardesty laughed.

“A disrespectful way to talk to your elders,” she observed from the back seat. Jim Elrod, beside her, laughed too.

“I think I’m takin’ the Fifth Amendment on that one.”

“It is getting very obvious,” Art Hampton remarked. “You have the whole Capitol talking. I must say it’s seriously endangering the dignity of the Senate.”

“Then there is something,” Mark said, with such a cheerful innocence that they all laughed, first at, then with him.

“His family will be the last to know,” Senator Hampton said. “A very shrewd character, your father-in-law.”

“Now, don’t go rushin’ us,” Jim Elrod protested mildly. “Nobody’s said anythin’, yet.”

“No time like the present,” Lyddie suggested cheerfully. “Pop it, Jim! Go ahead!”

“Lyddie, dear,” Jan said, good-natured but firm, “suppose you all just hold your horses, if you don’t mind. Senators move very slowly, you know—like tortoises. We’ll let you know, if and when. And no more speculation, please. This conversation never existed, outside this car.”

“Probably trying to figure out whether the voters will go for six months in Michigan and six months in North Carolina, so they can both hold their seats,” Art Hampton remarked.

“We can both hold our seats,” Senator Elrod said complacently. “No doubt about that, is there, Jan?”

“None whatsoever,” she agreed.

“Boy!” Mark said. “Such arrogance! But anyway—I’m delighted, you two. Can I tell Linda?”

“If and when,” her father said comfortably. “If and when.”

At the Sheraton-Park they arrived just in time to see the President again. He said much the same things, got the same wildly friendly welcome. Again they fought their way through the crush to a bar, greeting many friends along the way, fellow senators, members of the House, the diplomatic corps, several Supreme Court justices, many members of the media; again, he did not see her. He did, however, run into Chuck Dangerfield, who appeared to be alone.

“Hi,” Mark said. “Where’s your wife?”

“Home.”

“Not feeling well?”

“Expecting,” Chuck said. “Any minute now. And yours?”

“Same thing,” Mark said. “Not quite that soon—the usual time, in fact. We just found out yesterday. But she’s feeling a little tired.”

“I see you’re in good company, though,” Chuck said, shaking hands with Lyddie and her guests, all of whom seemed to know him.

“Why don’t you join us?” Mark suggested on a sudden impulse, pleased with himself. It wasn’t going to be necessary to go out of his way to cultivate Chuck, after all, it was all happening very naturally—and he might know where—“that is, if it’s all right, Lyddie?”

“Delighted,” Lyddie said. “Where’s that sinister boss of yours, young man? Inauguration isn’t Inauguration without Harvey Hanson.”

“He’s feeling a little poorly tonight, too, I understand,” Chuck said. He grinned. “Not with the same complaint Bridget and Linda have, I hasten to assure you.”

“He just delivers scorpions in that good-for-nothin’ column of his,” Jim Elrod remarked. “Not babies, just scorpions. I’ve been stung with a few of ’em myself.”

“We just do our best to report the news in ‘Washington Inside,’ sir,” Chuck remarked somewhat stiffly. Senator Elrod laughed.

“Don’t let my little joshin’ bother you, boy,” he said. “Harvey and I have known each other ever since he got fired from UPI and decided to write a column and show ’em. And he did. How many papers you got now, three thousand seven hundred and fifty?”

“Five hundred and seventy-three, sir,” Chuck said, thawing a bit. “And that ain’t hay.”

“Hope you’re gettin’ paid more than hay for all that stuff you get in there,” Jim Elrod said. “You’re a bright young feller who hears everythin’, so I’m told.”

“What about you and Senator Hardesty, Senator?” Chuck asked with a mischievous twinkle. Jan laughed and squeezed his arm.

“You demon newsmen,” she said. “But don’t print anything yet, please. We’ll let you know.”

“It will be my pleasure when you do, Senator,” Chuck said, a sincere liking in his voice.

“Watch out for this one,” Jan told Mark with mock solemnity. “He finds out all your secrets and then they appear in print, and then—blooey! if they’re the wrong kind. Fortunately mine have always been the right kind.”

“And always will be, Senator,” Chuck said. “Mark, how you doin’, anyway?”

Mark grinned.

“Surviving.”

“Good. I think you’re doing just great myself.”

“Thanks,” he said, and decided, aided by another scotch and soda, to bring it out in the open. “In spite of—”

“In spite of the Steering Committee,” Chuck said firmly, “which ought to be shot.”

“Oh now,” Art Hampton said with an unperturbed smile, “that’s rather rough talk for an old man in his dotage to hear.”

“But deserved,” Chuck remarked. “I just don’t see how you—”

“Yes, you do, Chuck,” Art Hampton interrupted, “so stop being disingenuous. You’ve been covering the Hill for four years now. You see perfectly well how we could.”

Chuck had had just enough to drink so that his eyes snapped and for a second he paused on the edge of a sharp retort. Then he thought better of it.

“Yes, sir,” he agreed. “But I don’t have to like it, any more than Mark does.”

“Your privilege,” Senator Hampton said. “Mark hasn’t said much so far.”

“Except that he’s going to keep right on fighting. For which,” Chuck said crisply, “I greatly admire him.”

“I expect all you boys in the media will be giving him a great play now,” Senator Elrod remarked. “You always have, of course, but now I expect it’ll be even bigger.”

“If he deserves it,” Chuck said coolly. “And I for one happen to think he does.”

“Well!” Lyddie said brightly to no one in particular. “Isn’t this nice!”

Which statement of perfect-hostess-bridging-uncomfortable-gap made them all start laughing, as she had intended it should; and the growing tension eased.

“Now!” she said. “Shall we go on down to the Washington Hilton and see what’s going on at that party?”

“I’m game,” Jan said. “For about one more. Then I’m going to fold, if you don’t mind, Lyddie. We have the Cabinet nominations to get started on tomorrow, you know.”

“All right,” Lyddie said. “One more it is. Is that all right with all of you?”

“I have to follow the President around to the bitter end,” Chuck said. “Why don’t you keep me company, Mark?”

“Why, sure,” he said, with again a stirring of that dangerous excitement and the thought that now he might see her at last. “I’d love to.”

And when Jim Elrod said, “Why not? Might as well enjoy your first Inaugural,” he marveled at how easy it all was, if you just rode with it.

At the Hilton they heard the President once more, by now beginning to show some signs of weariness after his long and grueling day but still able to charm the crowd and leave them laughing. As soon as he and his entourage had departed, Lyddie and the senators also departed, amid many thanks, warm good nights, and promises to “See you tomorrow”—words which, in Mark’s case, were rather more pointed and defiant than they perhaps should have been. But by now, aided by the drinks that flowed everywhere on this glamorous night, he was getting a little past the point of perfect control.

Dangerously past it, he told himself, and didn’t mind at all. Yes, sir, dangerously past. Faculty parties at Stanford were never like this.

“Say!” he said as he and Chuck stood in line outside the Hilton waiting their turn to catch a cab and go on to the Smithsonian. “Say”—feeling pretty crafty—“where are all your distinguished colleagues this evening, Bill Adams and the rest of them?”

And Chuck, who also had consumed a fair amount by now, had no trouble getting the message.

“I think Bill got himself excused. He’s covered so many of these things I think he decided to pull a little rank and stay home and watch television this time … Lisette’s around. I saw her at the National Gallery earlier.”

“Oh, did you?” he said blankly. “We were there. I didn’t see her. When was she there?”

“She came in with the President. She covered the dinner he gave for the new Cabinet. She’s been with him right along, I think.”

“She’s certainly kept herself hidden from me,” he said—recklessly, he knew, but who gave a damn. “I haven’t seen her anywhere.”

“Maybe she didn’t want you to see her,” Chuck said, his mischievous grin surfacing. “I’ll tell her you were looking, when I see her tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” Mark exclaimed, realized he was speaking loudly enough to attract attention from the couple next ahead in line, and lowered his voice abruptly. “Tomorrow? Hell, I want to see her tonight!”

“Do you, now?” Chuck said. “Okay, then, let’s go!”

“On to the Smithsonian!” Mark said happily. “On to the old fossils!”

“I’ll tell her,” Chuck gurgled as they finally got their cab and clambered in, “that you called her an old fossil!”

“Like hell you will!” Mark said, giving him a friendly punch. “Like hell!”

And they roared away, laughing, to the Smithsonian, Ball No. 4, the President again—and, this time, Lisette.

She was standing inside the door, apparently waiting for someone. He was not at all surprised to find that it was he.

“Well, for heaven’s sake!” she said, mock severity, arms akimbo. “Where have you been? Where have you been keeping him, Chuck? I’ve been looking for him all evening.”

“You have not!” he said happily. “You could have found me any time you wanned—wanted—to. You know that!”

“Anyway,” she said, laughing merrily and tucking his hand through her arm, “you’re here now, so let’s go have a drink, shall we, Chuckie?”

‘“Chuckie?’” Chuck inquired with a jocular distaste. “Now, where the hell did Chuckie come from?”

“Same place as Markie,” he said, and for a sudden shattering second saw himself—where he was—what he was doing—was quite probably about to do—and almost—almost—stopped and ran away in self-disgust. But the impulse passed in a second, of course. Life had its innevabill—in-ev-i-ta-bil-i-ties, he told himself happily.

“Where’s that drink?” he demanded as they plunged into the roaring crush. “Gimme that drink!”

Twenty minutes later, the President come and gone, they hurried out, he and Chuck rather shakily—Lisette had ordered her usual soda and lime—jumped into the car Lisette had waiting, and followed the presidential caravan across the Mall and up the river to Kennedy Center for Ball No. 5. By now the President was showing definite signs of exhaustion—it was nearing 1 a.m.—and Lisette remarked, “The poor guy’s dragging. The cruelties we subject a President to are beyond belief.”

“He loves it,” Chuck said. “You watch, he’ll get his second wind.”

And at Kennedy Center, standing on the steps of the Opera House in the Grand Concourse filled with wall-to-wall people, he seemed to have done so, for once again his little speech was light, charming, graceful, and once again he received the wild applause, the embracing and approving welcome. They all had another drink, since that seemed to be the thing to do on Inauguration Night (Lisette staying with soda and lime), and were about to leave for the sixth and last ball, at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel, when she suddenly exclaimed, “God, I’m dragging, too. I think I’ll pass up this one and go on home to bed. Will you both excuse me?”

“What if something happens to him?” Chuck said.

Simultaneously Mark said, “I’ll see you home.”

“Just a minute,” she said, laughing. “Don’t everybody talk at once. We’re covered by a reporter at L’Enfant—”

“Been covered all evening, actually, haven’t you?” Chuck inquired. “Thass our l’il Lisette, oh, you clever one, you!”

“We do have a lot of people on the job tonight,” she admitted serenely. “Anyway, as I say, we’re covered at L’Enfant, so he’ll be perfectly all right without me. And I am dragging. And, yes, Mark, I’d be delighted. If you’ll excuse me a minute to powder my nose first—” And with a sudden dazzling smile that encompassed them both, she turned and moved gracefully off to join the long line of anxious ladies waiting their turn down the hall.

“Buddy,” Chuck said, teetering slightly. “Buddy, are you sure—”

“What?” Mark demanded, swaying in unison.

“Are you sure you wanna take our l’il Lisette home? She’s dynamite, you know. Don’ get blown up now! Don’ go getting yourself blown up! Wanna keep that All-American Boy image, you know. Wanna keep on being Young Mark the Spark, not Mark the Futile Fizzle. Don’t be like old Rick, now. You’re not ole Rick. Are you really sure?”

“Why shou’n I be sure?” he snorted. “I’m jus’ gonna take her home and dump her off, you know. It isn’t as though it were any big deal, you know.”

“I hope not,” Chuck said, very distinctly, “because that would be bad for everybody.”

“Well,” he said, equally distinctly, “I think I’m old enough to judge that.”

“Thass good,” Chuck said, relapsing into his happy state again. “‘Cause I woul’n wan’ you to get hurt, buddy boy. Or sweet Linda, either. That would be bad. I might have to report it sometime, and I woul’n wanna do that.”

“Are you threath-threatening me?” he demanded, really angry now.

“No,” Chuck said, rather bleakly. “I’m jus—jus wonnerin’ what I’d do if a fren’ of mine, America’s new young hero, did som’n he shou’n do. It’d be kind of tough, I tell you. Kind of tough for me, I can tell you that.”

“Nothing’s going to be tough for anybody,” he said. “I’m jus’ gonna take her home and dump her off, how many times I have to tell you that?”

“Okay, okay,” Chuck said. “If you say so.” He sighed. “If you say so, Mark the Spark.”

“Don’t worry,” he insisted again. “I’m just gonna take her home and dump her off, and thass—all.”

But when she came back and they said good-bye and began to push their way on out through the still-celebrating crowd, he was conscious of Chuck’s long stare after them as they left. He told himself defiantly that he didn’t care, he didn’t care about Chuck and he didn’t care who else saw him, he didn’t care about anything because the damned Steering Committee had given him a spanking and he was hurt and humiliated and had drunk too much, and wanted Lisette—or did he, he didn’t really know, but anyway, she wanted him, he guessed—and here he was taking her home—and so the hell with them all. He didn’t know what would happen when he got her home, maybe he would just dump her off and go home. Maybe he would. So how about that, Mr. Chuck the Duck?

But when they arrived at the Watergate, she suggested he dismiss the cab; and after he had done so, she suggested he come up to her apartment for a nightcap; and after he had done so, she suggested—

And so it was three o’clock when he finally paid off another cab and very carefully unlocked the door of Jim Elrod’s house in Georgetown and tiptoed up the stairs as silently as possible. Linda woke when he stumbled in and laughed quite innocently and happily, undisturbed: all confident, now, he supposed, because she was pregnant and so, ispo facto—ip-so facto—thought she had everything her own way again.

“Did you have a good time?”

“Great,” he said.

She laughed.

“Got a little drunk, didn’t you?”

“Oh, a little.”

“Well, after all,” she said comfortably, “it was your first Inauguration Night. You’re entitled to some privileges. Come on to bed.”

He did so and fell almost immediately into a profound sleep. But not before he had time to realize how infernally lucky he was to get back so safely—and how easy everything was in Washington, if you just rode with it—and how worthless he was—and how abysmally ashamed of himself—and how little anything had been resolved—and, a little fearfully, though it was soon blotted out by sleep—wondered what would come of his rather fumbling but eager—oh, no doubt eager—roll on a Watergate water bed with a highly competent and very experienced l’il Miss Lisette.

***

Book III

***

Chapter 1

The consequences of this were of course inevitable, though for a brief while he thought there might be none save his disgust with himself. It was deep and ravaging and seemed punishment enough.

If this had been some grand earth-shaking passion, it might possibly have been another matter. But he was quite honest enough with himself to see it for exactly what it was: an ambitious girl who liked the aphrodisiac of power and enjoyed adding prominent names to her list just for the hell of it—and a disgruntled boy-wonder who had let himself go off the deep end because he had received his first setback in Washington.

Humiliation—intention—opportunity—and, finally, desire; quite genuine at the moment, but immediately after, as empty as though it had never been.

But it had been, all right, and when he awoke next morning it was with the unhappy expectation that Linda would be waiting for him with well-grounded suspicions and clear-eyed accusations. But not at all. It was almost ten when she awoke him with an affectionate pounding on his back and the cheerful cry, “Senator, we’re voting in five minutes!”

“My God!” he cried, rearing up and then sinking back as she began to laugh. “Don’t scare me like that!” He gave her a quick, intent look. To his amazed relief, all, apparently, was sunny and serene. “What time is it, anyway?”

“Quarter to ten, and you really had better get along to the Hill. The nominations are being sent up today, you know.”

“Have I slept that late?”

She laughed.

“You didn’t get in until three. It’s only natural.”

“I was with Chuck,” he said—Lie No. 1, not strictly untruthful but not exactly truthful, either—but he was sure Chuck would back him up on it if she ever asked—and maybe Lie No. 1 would thereby never have to be followed by Lie No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, No.—

“Did you get the President safely to bed?” she asked as he threw off the covers and started for the bathroom. “And was he tight, too?”

“Was I tight?” he demanded, turning back in mock disbelief. “I can’t believe it.”

“You were tight. I’ve never seen you like that. But, then, you’ve never been to an Inaugural, either; so I guess you deserved to have some fun. Was it fun?”

“It was quite an experience,” he said truthfully. “I had no idea what a rat race it is, from one Inaugural Ball to another.”

“Did you and the President make them all?”

“It was tough,” he said with a careful precision, “but everybody managed. Your dad and Lyddie and the rest of them dropped by the wayside around midnight at the Washington Hilton, but Chuck had joined us by then and asked me if I’d like to go on with him. It was quite an evening.”

“Did you see Lisette?” she asked—casually, not casually.

“Sure,” he said, feeling a sudden tension but managing an easy reply. “She was at the Mayflower and went on to Kennedy Center with us, but then she dropped out, too. She said she was tired out.”

“I didn’t know she ever got tired.”

“Meow, meow. She was last night.” (And that was no lie.) “Well—excuse me, I’d better get going.”

“We’re moving into the other house today, so don’t forget your new address when you come home tonight.”

“I’ll call around five and have you remind me. Why don’t you invite Jim over for dinner to help us house-warm it?”

“Why don’t you let me get a baby-sitter, and take me out to dinner?”

“It’s a deal. I’ll be right down. Don’t bother with anything but juice and coffee. I’m too fragile for more, at this point.”

“Serves you right,” she said affectionately as she went out. “That’ll teach you.”

“Something should,” he muttered to himself as he went into the bathroom, confronted his naked body in the full-length mirror, and was suddenly overwhelmed by very vivid and arousing memories of all the things it had done, and had done to it, scarcely eight hours before. “Something certainly should ….”

When he arrived at the office shortly after eleven, there was a request-to-call waiting from Lisette. He tore it up and dropped it in the wastebasket—a cavalier gesture whose comforting decisiveness did not last very long. By the time the bell rang through the corridors to summon them to the floor for the opening of the session he was jumpy with nerves that she would be after him from the gallery as soon as possible after they convened. He was also on edge because the nominations for the Cabinet were coming up from the new President. He was now firmly in the White House at last, and one whom Art Hampton had conceded to be “a most formidable man” was now even more formidable.

Lisette he did not see as he furtively but swiftly scanned the media galleries when he stepped on the floor. The nominations were upon him almost at once.

“Mr. President!” the secretary of the Senate called into the hush that followed the prayer by the chaplain. “A message from the President of the United States containing certain nominations!”

“The clerk will read,” said Hamilton Delbacher, as matter-of-factly as though he had been Vice-President all his life instead of only twenty-four hours.

And the clerk did so, enunciating carefully right on down through, “For the office of Attorney General of the United States, the Honorable Charles Macklin of California.”

Things moved fast thereafter.

Mark was on his feet at once. He did not know whether an objection would be in order at this time, or what he could do—he had no coherent plan. But the urge to do something impelled him up to cry, “Mr. President!” He was not aware of others doing the same.

“The Senator from Nebraska,” Ham Delbacher said calmly, and at his front aisle seat Art Hampton said with equal calmness, “Mr. President, I move that the nominations of the President be referred to the appropriate committees.”

“Mr. President!” Mark cried.

“The Senator from Ohio,” the Vice-President said.

“Mr. President,” said Herb Esplin, “I second the motion.”

“All in favor, all opposed, the ayes have it,” Ham Delbacher said in one smooth sentence, banged the gavel sharply, and that was that.

For a moment Mark remained standing, looking slightly dazed. A small titter began in the galleries and across the floor, and suddenly he realized how foolish he must look; particularly when the Vice-President inquired politely,

“For what purpose does the Senator from California seek recognition?”

“Well—” he said lamely. “Well, I wish to protest a nomination. But perhaps—possibly—this isn’t the time. Is it?”

There was another titter and at his side Rick whispered urgently, “Maybe you’d just better sit down, buddy.” But a sudden surge of anger kept him standing and put an extra sharpness in his voice as he demanded, “Well, is it?”

“Mr. President, if I may answer the Senator,” Art Hampton said in a fatherly tone, “there will be ample time for him to say anything he wants about any nomination when it comes to the floor of the Senate. The first step, however, is to take the matter up in committee. I would suggest to the Senator that he might better do that first, and let us proceed right now with the regular business of the Senate.”

“What is more important than the nomination of an unfit man to be Attorney General of the United States?” he asked coldly, and suddenly things began to shift a bit in his favor: there were scattered hand claps from the galleries, some approving laughter across the floor.

“Mr. President,” Art Hampton said firmly, “I must insist on the regular order. I move that the journal of the proceedings of the last session of the Senate be considered as read and approved.”

“Without objection, it is so ordered,” Ham Delbacher said.

“And now, Mr. President,” the Majority Leader said, ignoring Mark completely, “I wish to place in the Record at this point the Inaugural Address of the President of the United States, and to give him my heartiest commendation for his broad grasp of the issues that face—”

And he was off into a warmly partisan speech that lasted for twenty minutes and touched off a debate in which he and Herb Esplin exchanged good-natured digs at one another’s parties and their general standards of competence, while Senate and galleries listened with amused enjoyment and Mark and his aborted protest might as well never have existed.

After that there were a few more speeches on related topics by other senators, some insertions of material in the Record; by 2 p.m. they were getting ready to adjourn.

He had remained quietly in his seat during all of this, deliberately keeping his eyes off the galleries, chatting from time to time with Rick, who wandered restlessly in and out, and with Bob Templeton, who came over and sat for a while. Kal and Clem also came by, both obviously desirous of soothing what they took to be his ruffled pride at the casual way he had been dismissed. He tried to pretend he was not in the least bothered, and of course fooled neither.

“Don’t let ’em get you down,” Kal said comfortably. “It takes a while to learn the ropes. And you’ve got the committee hearings to raise hell in, too. They aren’t going to stop you from having your say.”

“And of course you can say it here when you want to, too,” Clem pointed out. “Just study the Senate rules a bit and you’ll get so they won’t be able to pull this ‘regular order’ bit on you.”

“Thanks,” he said gratefully. “I’ll play it smarter next time.”

“Art’s right on one thing, though,” Kal said. “At the moment, the best place to make your pitch is before the Judiciary Committee. That’s going to be the media circus—that’s where you’ll be able to drum up public support…In fact,” he added, sensing a lull as the session wound down to its close, and rising to his full height, “let’s find out about that right now. Mr. President! Mr. President!”

“The Senator from Hawaii.”

“Mr. President, I wonder if the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee could tell us when he proposes to open hearings on the nomination of the new Attorney General?”

Jim Madison stood up and faced them with a courtly smile.

“I will say to the distinguished Senator from Hawaii that I propose that the committee open hearings on the nomination of one of California’s most distinguished and able sons, Charles Macklin, at 10 a.m. tomorrow. Does the Senator wish to appear before us to testify?”

“I don’t,” Kal said with an amiable grin, “but I know one or two who might.”

“Tell them they are warmly welcome,” Senator Madison said with a jovial twinkle. “We will be happy to hear what they have to say.”

“I’ll pass the word. And, Mr. President, while I am on my feet, I wonder if the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee could also tell us when he plans to hold hearings on his defense money bill, S.1?”

“At 10 a.m. tomorrow,” Jim Elrod said cheerfully. “If the same people who want to testify on Mr. Macklin want to testify on S.1, tell them they’re going to have to have a good pair of roller skates.”

“I’ll tell them,” Kal said, as even Mark joined in the general laughter that swept the chamber. “Thank you, Mr. President.”

“Mr. President,” Art Hampton said, “I hate to put an end to this happy jollity, but many senators have many things to do as the business of the President’s nominations gets under way. I move the Senate stand adjourned until noon Wednesday.”

“Without objection,” the Vice-President said, “it is so ordered.”

On a sudden impulse on the way out, Mark stopped in one of the cloakroom phone booths and called his office. Mary Fran answered and said that, yes, Lisette was waiting for him. “But so is Chuck Dangerfield,” she added. “That’s good,” he said. “Yes,” she agreed. “You can see them together.” “Mary Fran,” he said, “we do understand each other.” “Indeed we do,” she said with a laugh; “I’ll tell them you’ll be along soon.”

But for all his lightness of tone, it was with considerable trepidation that he took the subway car back to the office building. It was not an interview he looked forward to with pleasure.

As nearly as he could judge, however, all went smoothly. He managed what he felt to be a matter-of-fact and comfortable greeting and she did the same. He could not quite meet Chuck’s inquisitive eyes for the first few moments but soon found himself returning look for look, quite unabashed. It was amazing how the mind adjusted and how quickly it restored itself to whatever balance was necessary to move things forward on a social plane. He might have been as practiced at this as—well, as Rick, to cite the nearest example he could think of. Except, of course, that he wasn’t.

“Well,” he said when Mary Fran went out with a departing wink behind their backs, “you both seem to be very well recovered from last night’s hectic festivities.”

“You, too,” Chuck said; and something in his tone made Mark realize abruptly that today he was not Chuck the new buddy but Chuck the reporter. “How did you like the Watergate apartments?”

“Very impressive, from the outside,” he said calmly.

“He just dropped me at the door, smartie,” Lisette said lightly. “I was exactly what I told you—exhausted. Sorry, friend.”

“Mmmm,” Chuck said. “Maybe. Too bad you didn’t get upstairs, Mark. It’s quite a place—not only historically, but from a scenic standpoint. It has a very good view over the Potomac into Virginia. Sure you didn’t see it?”

“Chuck,” he said, marveling at his own calmness and the honest steadiness of his gaze, “believe us, we said good night very chastely, Lisette went up to bed, and I went on home.” Some need for further verisimilitude, characteristic of the amateur prevaricator, prompted him to add, “Couldn’t quite shake the spell of the evening for a bit, though. I watched the rest of it on television before turning in.”

Lisette gave him a warning look he could not interpret and Chuck asked with a sudden alertness, “Oh? Was it interesting?”

“You ought to know,” he replied easily. “Didn’t you stay to the bitter end as you said you were going to?”

“No,” Chuck said, and beside him Lisette, for some reason Mark could not fathom, seemed to remain tense. “I cut out soon after you did. Guess we didn’t miss too much…What did you think of him? He performed pretty well all through the evening, I thought.”

“Oh, I thought so, too,” he agreed. “Formidable man, as Art Hampton said.”

“Formidable today with those nominations, too,” Lisette observed. “He’s going to make you fight right down to the line, isn’t he? Are you going to testify before Judiciary?”

“Certainly I am,” he said with some shortness. “What else do you think I’d do?”

“That’s exactly what I think you’d do,” she said, and for just a second a note he did not expect flashed through her voice, instantly come, instantly gone. My God, he thought with a sudden dismay, does she think it’s real, after all? And if so, what will I do about it?

“I don’t like to disappoint my admirers,” he said, deliberately making it light, “though”—more somberly—“I expect I’m inviting another trouncing.”

“Probably,” Chuck agreed, “but you don’t realize how happy it makes some of us to have you willing to take the chance. To find somebody around this place with the guts to stand up for what he believes in, and make a real fight—man, that’s a welcome sight for these tired old eyes, believe me.”

He smiled. “I try not to disappoint.”

“Don’t,” Chuck said with a sudden curious abruptness. “We need you.”

“Can we say you expect to be the lead-off witness in Judiciary tomorrow morning?” Lisette asked. “After Macklin, I mean?”

“Why not before?” Chuck inquired. “Since he has to roller-skate over to Armed Services—”

“Yes,” he agreed. “I thought that was a nice touch on Jim Elrod’s part. But it’s all up to the chairmen anyway, isn’t it? I don’t know when they’ll want me to testify. I’d like to go first, but maybe that wouldn’t be fair to good old Charlie.”

“I suspect good old Charlie will have his say, and then the committee members will have their say, and only then will you have your say,” she said. “But I know they always try to rush these Cabinet nominations as much as possible, particularly when Jim Madison has a fellow Californian on the stand. You might possibly get on before the day’s over.”

“They aren’t going to rush it if I have anything to say about it,” he said grimly. “And I just may.”

“Tell you what,” Chuck proposed. “You go over and kill Jim Elrod’s bill in the morning and then you can come along and kill Jim Madison’s favorite nominee in the afternoon. That will make a nice full day for you.”

“I’m not going to kill either one,” he said. “I’m not fooling myself. But they’re sure as hell going to know I’ve been around.”

“Good for you,” Chuck said. “Nobody could ask for anything more … Well, Lees, have we got what we came for?”

“I have,” she said cheerfully and quite impersonally. “Good luck, Mark. We’ll be watching when you enter the lion’s den—dens, rather.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll need all the support I can get.”

“You know you have mine,” she said, and again for the briefest of seconds her tone said more than she probably meant it to. And again he was suddenly dismayed. But Chuck did not appear to notice, and he promised himself that he would find an opportunity very soon to put an end to any ideas she might have about last night’s inadvertent and, for him, quite meaningless episode.

Meaningless, that is, as long as it did not affect his career, his family and his life. He was suddenly not at all sure.

But surface conventions came again to the rescue, they shook hands and said good-bye within the context of the working world, and departed promising to see him tomorrow at the committees.

He was not surprised that he should hear from her again before he left for home. That he should hear from Chuck again, and that it should be so shattering a message, was something for which he was not prepared.

“Hi,” he said with some surprise an hour later. “Did you forget something?”

“No,” Chuck said, sounding tense. “Is this an office line? Can anybody listen in?”

“I have a private number,” he said, and gave it to him. “Call me right back.”

Now what the hell—?

“I’m sorry, Mark,” Chuck said, and the strain in his voice indicated he was, “but I’m afraid I know where you were last night, and I’m afraid it’s going to give us both one hell of a problem.”

“Oh?” he said cautiously, though his heart skipped a beat and then began pounding furiously. “How do you know that? And why is it going to give us a problem?”

“I know it because the President didn’t go on to the last ball at the L’Enfant last night. Right after you left they announced he was feeling a little tired and was going back to the White House to get a good night’s sleep. So, you see, you didn’t watch him on television later, because he wasn’t there. And I was at the Watergate when you finally came out and went home. So it doesn’t take much to put it all together.”

“What the hell were you doing spying on me?” he demanded furiously. Chuck suddenly sounded tired and older, but determined.

“Because I’m a damned good reporter, that’s why. Because I am also, believe it or not, a friend of yours. Or I’d like to be, anyway. I don’t want to know that you gave in to the Hill’s most famous bedroom newslady, for Christ’s sakes. But when I saw you go out together, and then when I heard the Man wasn’t staying and I was free to go, I decided I had to find out, for both our sakes. And I followed my hunch, and followed you. Maybe if I’d been a little less tight I wouldn’t have done it; or maybe I would, I don’t know. Anyway, that’s what I did. And now we both have a problem.”

“I don’t see why you have a problem,” he said bitterly, “but you’re sure as hell trying to give me one. I wonder why that is?”

“Because that’s my job,” Chuck said, sounding unhappy but standing his ground. “You’ve been riding pretty high, wide and handsome on your integrity lately. I’ve got mine, too, you know. I find out a fact, I have an obligation to report it.”

“You haven’t found out any fact. You haven’t found out anything but just a damned ‘hunch.’”

“Oh, Mark, come off it. I’m not two years old, you know. Now, just cut it out! You went in that building at about quarter to one and you didn’t come out until almost three. Now, I know Lisette—and Washington knows Lisette—and when Washington hears that you were visiting Lisette for two hours after midnight, nobody’s going to need a road map. Don’t kid yourself.”

“How is Washington going to hear this?” he asked coldly. “Through your tattling?”

“It isn’t tattling,” Chuck said, again sounding unhappy, again standing his ground. “It’s my duty as a reporter.”

“And do you always exercise your duty on your friends? Or just on your enemies, like me?”

“You’re not an enemy. And maybe I won’t—say anything about it. But if the pressure gets really hot on these fights you’re in, and if my boss—”

“The great Harvey Hanson!”

“Well, he is great, in his own way. He’s the best reporter in this town, probably, and he’s uncovered more scandals and probably done more good than anyone else in the press in recent years.”

“And one more senatorial scalp at his belt is just what he needs, right?”

“Listen!” Chuck said desperately. “I’m not saying I am going to tell him, even if he should ask me. But I am saying it isn’t as easy for me as you’d like to make out. What I want to tell you basically, I guess, is to stay the hell away from Lisette because she’s bad business—and if I don’t say anything about it, she very likely will. She’s been known to. Let’s just pray she doesn’t.”

“I don’t think she will,” he said slowly, “but in a funny sort of way, her forbearance could be my problem—only of course it isn’t funny.”

“You sound as though you were functioning in a vacuum instead of in Washington, D.C.,” Chuck said, a certain hopelessness in his voice. “This place has ten thousand eyes and ears. So you think I’m the only one who saw you go out with her? Your own administrative assistant, Brad Harper, was watching you, because I saw him. The British ambassador saw you, the French ambassador saw you, plenty of people saw you. They didn’t have to follow you like I did to figure it out for themselves. Probably Lyddie’s received a dozen phone calls on Foxhall Road already about it. It’s probably all over town by now. Jesus!”

“All right,” he said, “friend—what do I do now? Tell me.”

There was silence during which he thought for one startled panicky second that he heard the tiniest, faintest noise on the line; but how could that be, it was his private line, nobody else could be on it. He shook his head with an angry impatience at his own hobgoblins and demanded,

“Well?”

“First of all,” Chuck said finally, “you stay away from her. And second, you don’t indicate to anybody by so much as an eyelash that there’s anything at all that’s worrying you; and if the slightest hint of this is ever uttered to you, you brazen it out and face it down and don’t ever comment in the slightest way, shape, manner or form. And maybe you’ll get by it and it won’t hurt you.”

“Unless, of course, you put it in the column.”

“Oh, Christ, Mark. Christ, Christ! I wouldn’t be wasting my time on you like this if I didn’t like you and believe in you and believe in what you’re doing here. You’ve got a great career ahead of you in this country, I’m convinced of it, but you’ve got to learn how to operate. And going to bed with the first easy mark who comes along isn’t the way to do it—if you want to survive in this town, that is, over the long run. So don’t do it again. Please?”

Again there was silence, and when he spoke at last it was very low, in a completely honest and open tone.

“Chuck, I appreciate your call, and I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me. I value your friendship, and I hope I will always have it for the rest of my life. I am not proud of myself, I want you to know. What happened was drunken and stupid and inexcusable. It was a betrayal of my wife and a betrayal of me—and of friends like you. I have no real rationale for it—I am ashamed of it—I feel like a pretty worthless guy. And I guess I am.”

“No, you’re not,” Chuck said, sounding relieved. “You’re human, buddy, that’s what you are. Great noble Young Mark Coffin is a human being, after all. It’s good for you to find that out, you know it? And it isn’t going to hurt you, if you learn the lesson from it. But you’ve got to really learn it, and no funny games. There are lots of guys on that Hill who play around—and they get away with it—and their careers survive—but there’s an erosion. There can’t help but be. It cripples them, in the long run: they don’t do as much as they could do. And they aren’t Mark Coffin, who, I think, has one hell of a future ahead of him if he can just get the handle on it, and hang on. Okay?”

“Okay, friend.”

“Good!” Chuck said. He gave a humorous sigh. “Boy, you’re a tough case! I’m exhausted! But I hope I’ve done you some good.”

“More than I can repay you for,” he said quietly. “So I’ll see you tomorrow morning, right?”

“Right. And—it stops here, Mark. Nobody’s ever going to hear about it from me. And I won’t tell Harvey. And if I hear any rumors I’ll do what I can to put them down. And maybe we can keep the lid on.”

“We’ve got to,” he said grimly.

“Yes.”

But in this, Chuck knew and he suspected, they were being greatly hopeful and more than a little naive.

At five, as promised, he called home.

“Checking in,” he said. “Making sure I’ll get to the right house. How’s it shaping up?”

“We’re in,” she said, and stopped abruptly.

“Well,” he said, suddenly alarmed by her tone. “Is that all?”

“What else is there?” she asked coolly. “We’re in, so we’re in. So what?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“You sound upset about something.”

“Should I be?”

“No. Why should you be?”

“I don’t know. Why should I be?”

“This isn’t making much sense to me. Did you get a baby-sitter? Have you made the reservation for dinner?”

“We aren’t going out.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Well—”

“Just come on home, Young Mark Coffin,” she said in a tired tone of voice. “I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”

“Linda,” he said with a sudden desperation, “what in the hell is this?”

“You just get on home,” she said in the same flat tone. “You’ll find out.”

“Well—”

“Got to run,” she said. “See you later.”

And hung up.

Promptly the buzzer sounded.

“Your lady friend on Line 3,” Mary Fran said.

“Don’t you ever call her that!” he snapped, and was instantly alarmed, both at and for himself, and apologetic. “I’m sorry, Mary Fran, I didn’t mean to sound—”

“I only meant it humorously,” she said. “I’m sorry. I thought we were agreed about her. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he said miserably. “I guess I’m under more strain from these fights in the Senate than I realize. We do agree about her. In fact, why don’t you put her off—”

“This is the sixth time she’s called since she and Chuck left. I don’t really think I can make any more excuses. And she won’t give up. I know her.”

“Okay,” he said, bracing himself. “Put her on.”

“Do you want me to listen?”

“No. But stand by for the buzzer if I decide I need you.”

There was silence for a second during which he took a deep breath and found the world suddenly very bleak. Then she was on the line and he realized that for once she was not her usual assured self. Her voice was determinedly light and humorous—too determinedly.

“You are a busy man. Do you realize I’ve called you five times in the past hour?”

“Sorry. It’s been a busy afternoon. What can I do for you?”

“Stop sounding so damned impersonal, for one thing!”

“Lisette—”

“And don’t hit the buzzer for Mary Fran. Be a big brave little man, now, and talk to me!”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“What do I want to talk about? What do I want to talk about? What do I want to—”

“You’re in a rut,” he said with deliberate coldness. “If I can give you some comment on something, let me know and I’ll think about it. But if it isn’t business, I do have a lot to do.”

“Oh no you don’t!” she said, all pretense abandoned, ragged strain in her voice. “I’m at home and I want you to come here right away.”

“I can’t possibly. I’ve got to get on home—”

“You can spare half an hour. I want to talk to you!”

“You’re crazy,” he said, and across his mind swept the chilling thought: Maybe she is. So, more reasonably, he added, “I can’t possibly make it today. Maybe we could have lunch sometime on the Hill, if you’d like—”

“Sure, where I’d be trapped and couldn’t say anything and everybody would be watching and you could be very polite and public and protected against being honest with me. That would be great! I want to talk to you here!”

“I can’t, I’m sorry,” he said firmly. “Please get off the line, Lisette, or I will have to buzz Mary Fran.”

“Oh—!”

“Do you want me to?”

“I don’t care,” she said, voice suddenly lifeless and dispirited. “Do whatever you like. It doesn’t matter. Do as you like.”

And immediately, of course, he began to weaken.

“I don’t mean to be harsh about it,” he said lamely, “I hope we’re still friends.”

“There’s a cliché if I ever heard one,” she said, her voice beginning to revive a little, the start of humor coming into it. “You’re an original one, you are, Young Mark Coffin.”

“Well, I do hope so,” he said, trying to put a little humor into his own voice. “Will I still see you tomorrow at the hearings?”

“Oh sure, I’ll be there. Meanwhile, I’ll be right here.”

“I know, but—”

“I’m sorry you’re such a coward, Mark,” she said, sounding quite herself again. “Do take care of yourself.”

“I—” he began, but there was a click and the line went dead.

He looked at his watch.

Twenty minutes through home-bound traffic to the Watergate-Half an hour—

Another fifteen minutes through traffic—Home, in all likelihood, by seven.

“Working late on the Hill”—just like Daddy.

“Maybe I’m the one who’s crazy,” he told himself in the silent office. But he knew he would go.

This was the time to put an end to it, once and for all.

He moved swiftly through the lobby of Watergate. His head was down, his gait brisk, his manner matter-of-fact and businesslike.

“Mark Coffin!” Lyddie cried happily from somewhere off to his right. He gulped, paused, turned; there she was, bright and lively as ever, dressed in pink tea gown and hat (did anybody but her generation still wear such things?) beaming upon him from near the elevators.

“Well!” she said, coming over, taking his arm, leading him firmly to a quiet corner. “And what are you doing here? I’ve been to tea.”

“I see you have,” he said. “Do people still have tea?”

“It’s Jane Ellison. She’s the widow of old Senator Ellison who was with my husband in the House before they kicked him upstairs to the Senate. Jane doesn’t get much company, poor old thing. I like to cheer her up.”

“How old is poor old Jane?” he asked with a smile. She hit him cheerfully on the arm.

“She’s seventy-eight,” she said, “and don’t you get fresh about it, Senator. So, what are you doing here?” And suddenly her shrewd little eyes became shrewder still, and without waiting for an answer she said, “Guess who I just saw in the elevator! That little Grayson girl from ABC.”

“Oh?” he said, managing to make it a simple question—after all, what cause would Lyddie have to associate the two of them? There was nothing to worry about.

“Yes, I wasn’t quite sure whether she was coming in or going out.”

“She wouldn’t be going out,” he said quickly, and knew himself trapped.

“Really!” Lyddie said. “And why not, pray tell?” Abruptly she lowered her voice to a near-whisper. “I wouldn’t, if I were you, Mark. I really wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t what?” he demanded in sudden exasperation. Did everybody in this God damned Washington have to know everybody else’s business? And what right did they have, anyway?

“Wouldn’t get involved,” Lyddie said solemnly, staring at him with candid eyes.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, as if insistence would make it so.

“My spies tell me—” she began lightly, then dropped it for a more serious tone, still in half-whisper, gesturing busily at some potted plants as she talked. Lyddie the Undercover Agent, he thought with a wild stab of humor. “You were seen leaving with her last night.”

“So I walked her to her car and said good night. What was wrong with that?”

“No, you didn’t,” she said, her tiny mottled hand suddenly tight on his arm. “No, you didn’t, Mark Coffin. Did you?”

“Lyddie—” he began with an attempt at a laugh; then it failed. He had felt from the moment they met that he could trust her—now he desperately needed someone to confide in. A great chance—but she was old enough to be his grandmother. Trust was flattering, and, with the right person, binding. Somebody in Washington must be worthy of it. Why not?

He looked down, met her eyes without evasion, spoke very low.

“I didn’t want to, Lyddie. I was drunk—upset about the Senate—not myself. The usual excuses. It happened. I’m not proud of myself.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for trusting me. I’ll help you—especially with Linda, who’s going to find out sooner or later.”

“I think she already has.”

“Weather it,” she advised crisply. “I’ll talk to her—she’s a congressional wife. There’s a price—unfair, but there it is. She’ll be all right. Meanwhile, may I ask, kind sir, what the hell are you doing here now? You’d better get right on home this minute.”

“She wants to talk to me and I want to talk to her. Because she’s got to understand right now that that’s all there is, there isn’t any more.”

“Do you think you can trust yourself today any more than you could last night?”

“I think so.”

“You’d better know so before you see that one alone. She doesn’t have the reputation she does for nothing.”

“I’m not afraid of her. My mind’s made up.”

“So’s hers, I gather,” she said tartly. “And she’s got you this far, which is plenty. What’s her apartment number?”

He told her.

“All right,” she said firmly. “Let’s co-ordinate our watches. I’m going to wait right here and if you aren’t down in fifteen minutes I’m coming up and pound on the door.”

“Oh, Lyddie—”

“I will!” she promised firmly. “I will! You just see if I don’t! Fifteen minutes—starting now. Better hurry.”

For a second he stared at her determined little face. Then he laughed, bent down and kissed it.

“You’re great. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

“You’d better!” she said, giving him a whack on the back. “Or your name will be m-u-d.”

“Heavens!” he said with a wink. “Not t-h-a-t!”

But once in the elevator humor, comfort, certainty vanished. He had no idea what he would find on the other side of the chaste white door that bore no name plate, only the number. He thought he heard a television going inside but it might have been somewhere else. He raised a hand, disgusted to find that it was trembling, and rapped sharply twice.

There was movement, the television stopped.

“Come in,” she said, reaching for his hand. But he removed it and with a wry smile she stepped aside and gestured him in, locking the door behind him. “We do that,” she explained dryly, “even in Watergate. Don’t take it personally. Sit down.”

“For a minute. I’ve got to get right on home. What did you want to see me about?”

“Mark!” she said. “For heaven’s sake, what is this? What do I want to see you about! Are you going to be Noble Mark Coffin even now? You certainly weren’t last night.”

“Last night was last night,” he said, flushing. “And it isn’t going to happen again.”

“Did I say it was?” she inquired, sitting down across the room from him on an enormous and obviously expensive sofa.

“Good,” he said, though, of course, quite irrationally, he felt a slight chagrin at her matter-of-fact tone. “That’s settled, then.”

She laughed and he inquired sharply,

“What’s the matter?”

“You sound so determined about it. You’re really convincing you, I can see that.”

“I am not convincing me!” he said angrily. “I am convinced!”

“All right,” she said calmly, “all right, all right. Good for you, that’s great. Now, just exactly what did you come here for?”

“What did I come here for? You asked me to!”

“And you said you wouldn’t. But here you are. What am I supposed to make of that, Mark?”

“Look,” he said, forcing himself to speak as slowly and impersonally as possible, “let’s don’t try to get me all tangled up in little games, okay? You were sure as hell upset when you called me in the office. You demanded I come and see you. Here I am. Now, what do you want?”

She lit a cigarette, waving off his automatic impulse to rise and assist her; studied him for a long moment; smiled.

“Why, I want you, Markie dear,” she said dryly. “What else is any better around the Hill these days?”

“I told you—” he began sharply.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” she snapped. “Knock it off, you two-bit Young Lochinvar from out of the West! If you haven’t got the guts to be honest about our feelings for each other—”

“I haven’t got any ‘feelings’” he said angrily. “Except as I had hoped we might possibly remain friends. Now I’m not sure I want even that.”

“That’s good,” she said coldly—but he noticed her hand was trembling—“because you aren’t going to get it.”

“Well”—standing up—“then I guess that’s that and I might as well go. I’m sorry I was fool enough to come here last night and I’m sorry I came here today. So long, Lisette. I’ll see you around the Hill.”

And he turned and started for the door. Not to his surprise, she was up like a flash, grabbing his arm, blocking his way.

“Silly,” she said with a very good imitation of a mocking laugh—but her hand on his arm was still trembling. “Silly, silly, si-lly! Stubborn, headstrong—Mark Coffin, you’re something else. Sit down again and let’s talk this over sensibly.”

“I’ve done all the talking I want to do,” he said, and suddenly he realized this was exactly true: he wanted out and away from her as fast as he could go. He knew he was probably making a fearful enemy, but abruptly and completely he knew that couldn’t be helped. It was over, it should never have begun—it was over. And the only way to make her understand, apparently, was to be brutal.

“You don’t mean that,” she said still lightly but now her voice as well as her hand trembled. “Come on back and sit down for a minute and we’ll talk.”

“I said I’m not talking anymore,” he said, removing her hand firmly. “Now forget it, Lisette. It’s best for us both. Just forget it.”

“Easy for you to say,” she said, eyes flaring with a sudden dangerous light. “Very easy for you, great, big, superior male.”

“Now, don’t tell me,” he said with a sarcasm as savage as hers, “that this was a case of Poor Innocent Little Lisette, pure as the driven snow, being seduced by an evil adventurer from California. Don’t tell me it was my idea to come here last night.”

“You’re not a child, you wanted to come here last night! God damn it, Mark Coffin,” she said with a sudden vicious anger. “Stop being such a mealy-mouthed hypocrite! Poor Innocent Little Mark, pure as the driven snow, being seduced by an evil witch from Televisionland won’t wash, either! So stop the crap right now.”

For several moments they stood close, breathing hard, staring furiously at one another. Finally he said, voice shaken but purpose inflexible,

“All right. I concede that. It doesn’t have to make me proud of it and it doesn’t have to make me want it to continue. I don’t want it to continue and it isn’t going to continue. Is there any way I can make that clear?”

Quite abruptly her eyes filled with tears, she reached out a trembling hand again and said in a trembling voice,

“Oh, Mark. Don’t be so cruel. I do love you, you know.”

“I’m sorry, Lisette,” he said quietly. “I’ve got to go now. Please let me pass.”

“I said I love you!” she said with a sudden hysteria. “How many men do you think I’ve said that to in my life? Just what do you think I am, anyway? And who do you think you are, that you can kick me in the face like this and get away with it?”

“Please,” he said again quietly.

Again there was a long silence while they stared at one another, strangers and enemies for certain now, he knew. Slowly she stood aside, all animation abruptly gone, eyes lifeless, voice dull.

“Okay,” she said. “Go.”

“I’ll see you on the Hill, then”—strangely, more anxious than he had any right to be.

“Oh sure,” she said, staring out the window, eyes far away. “Oh sure, Mark Coffin. You’ll see me on the Hill.”

“And we will, I hope, be friends.”

“Just go,” she said, voice flat, still looking away. “Just go on and go.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I will.”

And did so, feeling as empty and drained as she appeared to be.

In the lobby, faithful to her word, Lyddie was waiting.

She gave him a quick, sharp glance, a pleased little smile.

“You did it!”

“Yes,” he said, his voice suddenly as dull and lifeless as Lisette’s, “I did it.”

“Good for you.”

He gave a heavy sigh.

“I hope so. I don’t want to be unfair—”

“Unfair to her?” Lyddie demanded. “In a situation like this? Dearest Mark, you have no choice.”

“No,” he said, but the exhilaration he knew he should feel was buried beneath a heavily depressed and apprehensive mood. “I guess not. Now all I have to do is face Linda—”

“Face her. Face her! She’ll forgive you eventually. She doesn’t have much choice, either.”

He looked at her and managed the ghost of a smile.

“Lyddie, I hadn’t realized before how ruthless you are, at heart.”

“There are times when you have to be,” she said cheerfully, “and in eighty-three years, the great majority of them spent in this town, I’ve discovered that you don’t always pick and choose when the times will be. Sometimes they just creep up on you. Now, head up, chin in, shoulders back, and away you go!”

And standing on tiptoes she reached up, pulled his head down and gave him a resounding kiss which he returned, hugging her with a sudden hunger as though she were indeed his grandmother and he a scared little boy needing reassurance.

“Bless you, Lyddie.”

“Run along!” she ordered cheerily. “All will be well for our hero, Young Mark Coffin!”

“God knows I hope so,” he said with a rueful smile as they emerged into the cold night air and she hopped into her waiting limousine with a bright little wave. “I do hope so.”

Slowly he went back in, got his car from the garage, drove carefully through the thinning traffic to Georgetown. Five minutes after seven he turned in his new driveway, parked his car, took a deep breath and opened the kitchen door. Daddy was home from the Hill and three disturbed faces greeted him: the kids’ worried for reasons they could not understand but sensed, Linda’s withdrawn and remote for reasons he was afraid he understood all too well.

“Hi,” he said, shrugging out of his coat and hat, stopping to draw Linnie and Markie into his arms and give them the usual big hug and kiss. “How’s everybody?”

“Pretty good, I guess,” Linnie said.

“Pretty good, I guess,” echoed Markie, doubtfully.

“They’re almost through with supper,” Linda said, not looking at him, accepting his kiss on her cheek without response and turning away. “Why don’t you have a drink and I’ll get them up to bed.”

“Oh,” he said, dismayed, “aren’t we all going to eat together? I want to have some time with them—”

“They’ll get used to it,” she said with studied indifference. “Daddy’s a great big senator now. They’ll get used to not seeing him much.”

“And what do you mean by that?” he demanded, alarmed, while the kids stared up at them with wide, troubled eyes.

“Just that we won’t any of us be seeing you much,” she said in the same indifferent tone. “After all, the Hill comes first. I know that.”

“But I don’t want it to be that way!”

“No?” she asked, looking at him directly for the first time. “You’re certainly starting off in a funny way, if that’s your objective.”

“Linda—”

“Go get a drink. Come on, kids, let’s go finish up now. Daddy’ll come up and kiss you good night. Maybe he’ll even tell you a story. Before he comes down and tells Mommy one. Come on now!”

And brushing him aside, she herded them, staring back at him with continuing wide-eyed worry, into the dining room, still filled with unpacked crates of china, flatware, the small domestic things of home.

He sighed, went to the refrigerator, got ice cubes, opened cupboards until he found where Linda had decided to keep the liquor; mixed himself a stiff scotch and soda, took it into the living room and sat down in his favorite rocker, not yet in its proper place, wherever that might ultimately prove to be.

Presently they passed the door, the kids waving.

“Come up in ten minutes,” she said over her shoulder.

When he did, they met on the stairs, but she skillfully sidestepped his attempt to reach out for her and brushed on by. He sighed again, heavily, arranged his face in the necessary smile and went into the bedroom the kids were sharing until their furniture could be suitably arranged.

“Why are you and Mommy mad at each other?” Linnie demanded promptly.

“We aren’t,” he said firmly. “I want you two to be quiet and go to sleep now. Everything’s all right. And you have a big day tomorrow.”

“Doing what?” she inquired, and he was forced to laugh, which was a good thing.

“I don’t know,” he conceded. “Isn’t every day a big day, now you’re living in Washington? It is for me.”

“Me, too,” Markie announced gravely from the other bed, giving unsuspected support.

“There, you see?” he said to Linnie. “There’ll be something. You’ll see.”

“I don’t like you and Mommy to be mad at each other,” she said, not to be deflected, and this time Markie was no help.

“Me neither. Such a fuss!”

“There hasn’t been any fuss,” he said, going over to ruffle his hair and straighten his blankets. “And there isn’t going to be any. Now I want you guys to quiet down and go to sleep, okay? Right away!” “Mommy was crying this afternoon,” Linnie advised him solemnly as he came over to her bed. From behind him Markie offered soberly, “Lots.”

“Oh, I hope not,” he said, dismayed.

“Yes, she was,” Linnie said.

“Yes, she was,” Markie corroborated.

“Well,” he said, “I’m sorry to hear about that. Why don’t you go to sleep now, so that I can go down and talk to her and find out what it’s all about? We don’t want her to keep on crying, do we?”

“No,” Linnie said.

“Cern’ly not,” said Markie.

“All right, then,” he said reasonably. “You’ve got to co-operate, too, you know. You’ve got to let me go so I can go down to her. And I can’t until you promise me you’re going to sleep. All right?”

“Daddy,” Linnie said solemnly, “are you going to work on the Hill late every night?”

“Not if I can help it,” he said, and suddenly it became a fervent promise.

“I hope we’ll see you sometime,” Markie said.

“You’re seeing me now,” he pointed out. “Now, come on, you guys! Eyes shut and let’s knock it off, okay? I’ll count for you. One—two—”

“We hope we will see you,” remarked Linnie, eyes tightly closed.

“Sometime,” Markie said, similarly obedient.

“All the time,” he said. “Three—four—five—six—”

“I’m asleep,” Markie announced.

“So am I,” said Linnie. “Now you can go see Mommy.”

“All right,” he said, stepping out the door and drawing it carefully shut behind him. “I’m on my way.”

She was in the kitchen, bustling about: busyness in the kitchen, he knew from past experience—though no experience exactly like this, he could truthfully say—was a sure sign. There was no way out except straight ahead.

“The kids tell me you’ve been crying. Why?”

“Not very much.”

“Lots, Markie said.”

“Things always seem bigger to children, you know that. It was a mere sniffle—of rage, if anything. Why should I have been crying?”

“That’s what I asked you. Tell me.”

“Fix yourself another drink.”

“No, I think not, until this is straightened out.”

“Then at least let me get dinner on the table.”

“I’m not sure I want to eat anything.”

“I’m not sure, either,” she said, suddenly flinging the lettuce she was preparing down on the counter and swinging around to face him. “I’m not sure food is ever going to taste quite the same again.”

“Oh, come on. How dramatic can you—”

“I’m not being dramatic,” she said angrily. “I mean it.”

“I still don’t know why—”

“You know why. You just haven’t got the guts to say it. You want to make me say it.”

“So, say it,” he suggested with an anger of his own, sounding much braver than he actually felt at that moment. “Or finish getting dinner and let me eat.”

“I thought you said you were out until three o’clock because you went to all the Inaugural Balls last night. But you didn’t go to any Inaugural Balls after the Kennedy Center because—”

“—the President canceled out on the last one and didn’t go on to any after Kennedy Center,” he echoed her, word for word.

“Yes!” she said. “That’s exactly it! Where were you and why did you lie to me?”

“I told you I was with Chuck—”

“Oh, no doubt he’ll lie for you,” she said coldly. “You’re his big hero at the moment—until it suits his purpose to put you in that damned column. Where were you when you weren’t with Chuck?”

“He isn’t going to put me in the column—”

“Oh, you have discussed it, then. What would he put in, if he did?”

“Nothing,” he said, trying to sound patient and calm, “because there isn’t anything.”

“Oh, Mark Coffin, stop lying! You were with that little bitch from ABC, weren’t you? You went home with her, didn’t you? You—”

“Yes?” he inquired, as they glared at one another like strangers—except that in this case they weren’t and couldn’t be. “What did I do then?”

“You know what you did then,” she said, beginning to cry, “and it sickens me. It sickens me!”

“Linda—” he began.

“Don’t!” she said, hands over eyes, tears streaming between them. “Don’t lie anymore! You were seen! You were seen!”

“What was I seen doing,” he demanded, “and who was I seen by?”

“You were seen leaving Kennedy Center with her,” she said, taking her hands away, looking at him from red, unhappy eyes. “By Brad Harper and God knows who else, that’s who! Incidentally,” she added almost as an afterthought, child of politics still, “you’d better get rid of him. He isn’t any good to you. He isn’t loyal. He tattles.”

“I’m going to take care of that,” he agreed, and for a second everything was quite matter-of-fact again. “But it’s going to take a little time ….” He pulled himself back because he must. “So what excuse did he give for calling and telling you that?”

“Oh, an oily one,” she said, starting to cry again. “He just wanted me to know because he thought I should warn you that you should remember Washington is a very observant place and you are in the public eye—and people—w-watch—wh-what you do, and—oh, Mark, how could you!”

“I simply went out to see her to her car,” he said, “and then Chuck and I went on to a little bar someplace and had a drink and—”

“Oh, Markie, stop it! Stop it! I’ve grown up in this town. I’m not a child, I’m your wife. Stop treating me as though I were a moron who would believe every cock-and-bull story that comes along!”

“Call Chuck,” he suggested, knowing he was taking a long gamble but with nowhere else to go.

“I won’t call Chuck,” she said, “because Chuck will be like everyone else in Washington when they’re on the spot. He won’t confirm and he won’t deny. What’s the point in calling Chuck? I know, Mark. Believe me, I know.”

There was a silence while he stared carefully into the bottom of his glass—he had forgotten he was still holding it and now only a small puddle remained at the bottom—and she, presumably, stared at him. At least he felt she was; and presently, after the silence had gone on for what seemed a very long time he sighed and spoke.

“Very well. I will tell you. You are right—”

“Oh!” she cried, a harsh, ancient wail.

“You are right,” he went evenly, honestly, inexorably. “I was with Chuck, as I said, up to Kennedy Center. She—Lisette—joined us at the Mayflower. Chuck and I had plenty to drink—too much, for me, because you know I’m not used to it. But I was upset about the Senate, and the committee assignment, and all—and you weren’t there, you had to come home—”

“I wish I’d stayed,” she said bitterly.

“You couldn’t, but it would have helped. Anyway, there I was. And there she was. And you’re right about her being after me from the beginning, too. She has been, right from the start. But I told her on a couple of occasions, and I meant it, to forget it and leave me alone. But she wouldn’t. And last night I really wasn’t in any condition to say no again. And—” he said, very low, very miserable, but honest still, “I’m not so sure I wanted to, at that particular moment.”

“Markie!”

“No, I’m not going to blame her entirely. As Chuck said, I found out that even”—he gave a sudden bitter smile—“even Young Mark Coffin is a human being. But I’m sorry I had to involve you in the lesson, too. I hadn’t counted on that. Though I suppose it was inevitable, sooner or later, Washington being what it is. What a town…But”—and now he forced himself to look up into her tear-filled eyes—“you’ll be glad to know—if it still makes any difference—that it’s all over now. I have Lyddie for proof. She wants you to call her tomorrow. She’ll talk to you about it.”

“How did Lyddie get involved?” she asked; adding with a desperate half-cry, half-laugh, “Is there anybody in Washington who doesn’t know?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I expect not. If they don’t they will: Brad’ll spread the word. I saw Lyddie at the Watergate about an hour ago.”

“You went back there!”

“Yes, I did, but hear me out. I went back there determined to break it off once and for all, and I did. Ask Lyddie. She clocked me. She told me to synchronize our watches and she gave me fifteen minutes to go up and get it over with.”

“Oh Lyddie!” she said, again half-laughing, half-crying. “If she isn’t the most—”

“She’s great, and we both owe her a lot. That’s what she did, true enough, she gave me fifteen minutes—and she waited until I came down, too. And then she told me to come home and face you, and we could work it out. I hope,” he said humbly, “that we can.”

“What did Miss Priss say about it?” she asked, and he was relieved to hear a note of objective interest come into her voice: maybe there was daylight ahead, after all.

“Miss Priss was quite upset. She asked me what I thought she was. Having had the proof, I refrained from answer. I just told her it was no go, it had to stop. And it has.”

“Was she vengeful?” she asked, and with a great wave of emotion he thought: she believes me, we’re coming through.

“Not directly, but I got the feeling I have a real enemy now.”

“Did she threaten to tell anybody?” she asked, and he could see Jim Elrod’s daughter’s mind going to work on the possibilities. “Because if she doesn’t, then nobody will ever have any real proof.”

“That’s right,” he said, hardly daring to breathe. “I don’t see how she can tell anybody if she has any pride at all.”

“She has terrible pride. That’s why I’m worried for you.”

And that was a great plus, too.

“What do you think I should do?” he asked cautiously, noting that her eyes were quite dry now, wide with thought: she was busy with it.

“We’ll have to do it together. If she ever says anything—if she ever says anything—then you must just shrug and laugh and say something like, ‘Well, I guess Lisette wouldn’t be Lisette if she didn’t claim she’s landed every eligible male on the Hill,’ or something like that—whatever seems to fit the conversation. Just make fun of it—not too much, otherwise she really will get vindictive, but just enough to turn it into a joke, so that while they’ll always speculate, they will never know for sure…And as for me…As for me—”

She paused and he said, “Yes?” with what he hoped would be just the right touch of co-operation and partnership. Apparently it was, for she went on thoughtfully,

“As for me, I’ll just have to be the ever-present wife, I guess. I think it would be a good idea if I helped you in the office—I’ve always felt that. The kids are going to be in school, I’ll get a housekeeper, you find a place for me and I’ll come to work.”

“Two Senators Coffin,” he said, realizing he was fairly caught but in no position to argue now.

“Two for the price of one,” she agreed with the first hint of a smile since he had entered the house. “And a real bargain, at that…And then I think we’d better make sure very soon to go somewhere together—probably to that new play at Kennedy Center that’s getting such raves. I’ll phone tomorrow morning and see if we can get tickets for tomorrow night. We’ll just sail in—and sail around saying hello to everybody—and sail out again at the end of the evening—and everybody will say what a great couple we are. “Oh”—and for a moment her mouth twisted into a smile more bitter than amused—“at least they’ll say, ‘What a brave girl Linda Coffin is!’ Which, I suppose, amounts to the same thing in a lot of marriages. Why should we be any different?”

“Lin—” he said, and he rose and went over and took her hands, which she did not pull back. “I am so very sorry. It wasn’t me. It couldn’t be me. It won’t ever be me again.”

“Never is a long, long time,” she said softly, looking him straight in the eyes.

“Not too long for us,” he said, aware of his effects—but he meant it, too—and moved forward to kiss her. Abruptly her hands were withdrawn and pushing against his chest. She stepped back.

“Not yet awhile,” she said coolly. “I’m sticking by you because of the kids, and because I believe in you and what you can do for all of us—for the country, I mean—but… not yet awhile.”

“I hope because you love me, too,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, and her eyes filled suddenly again with tears. “That, too, Mark Coffin. That, too.”

But she would not let him touch her or kiss her for the rest of the evening; and after a somewhat awkward but quite calm meal, she refused his help with the dishes, got things cleaned up neatly and then suggested that he take the third bedroom “because I’m probably not going to sleep very much and I don’t want to disturb you.”

“But, Lin—” he protested, openly dismayed.

But she remained unmoved, and it happened as she said.

Even so, he awoke next morning, after a restless night himself, reasonably secure in the feeling that things would hold together and that he would not go into the Senate battles dragged down by chaos at home. For which, he told himself grimly, Young Mark Coffin should thank his lucky stars, because for one hectic day he had been on the very edge of chaos everywhere and by some miracle of forbearance on the part of family, friends and the Good Lord above, had been pulled back to safety before it was too late.

Or so it seemed to him, at any rate, on the cold bright morning on which the Armed Services Committee took up Jim Elrod’s defense bill and Judiciary turned to the nomination of Charles A. Macklin to be Attorney General of the United States.

***

Chapter 2

The high curved rostrums from which senators peer down upon their compliant or defiant human targets—the microphones and cameras clustered to catch the slightest breath of even the most reticent witness—the self-important bustle of clerks and staff aides behind the senators, the clever gossip of the media at the press tables behind the witness stand, the hum of a lively and excited audience—they are repeated hundreds of times a year on Capitol Hill, and this morning it was time for them again. In both the Senate Armed Services and Judiciary committees the trappings of a major hearing were present in even greater degree than usual, for these were two major issues and interest ran high—even higher when it was announced that the junior senator from California had requested, and would have, the opportunity to testify on both.

He arrived in his office soon after 8:30 a.m. to find Brad and Mary Fran waiting, Mary Fran with the day’s schedule of appointments, Brad with an important-looking briefcase stuffed with papers. He went over the appointments; told Mary Fran to clear everything except the extremely urgent, which he would try to get to late in the day; signed a few special personal letters (he had already found himself so swamped with routine correspondence that he had abandoned his protest against the autographing machine without a murmur); and told Brad to come in and bring his papers.

These turned out to be two lengthy memos, one on Charlie Macklin, the other the latest figures on Russian and U.S. defense spending—an excellent job of preparation for his testimony, he had to admit.

He was circumspect, polite and uncommunicative as he went over them; and was perfectly aware that Brad was nervous and that Mark’s manner made him more so. But he had made up his mind during the night that he would say nothing and let Brad’s own conscience raise the matter, if the bastard had one. It had not been easy to face him as though nothing had happened, but he had managed. Good practice, he told himself grimly: he was going to need a lot of it, in the days ahead.

He finished with the papers, looked up and said politely,

“Good job. Is that all?”

“That about does it,” Brad said. “Except that I was wondering if possibly—”

“Yes?”

“Do you want me to go to one of the hearings for you?”

He started to say no, then paused.

“Yes, why not? I’ve decided I’ll go to Armed Services first, because Macklin will be the lead-off witness in Judiciary, and I imagine it will take the committee most of the day to question him. I probably won’t get on until afternoon sometime. Why don’t you cover that for me while I go and talk a bit about Jim Elrod’s bill?”

“All right,” Brad said; started to turn and go out, then hesitated and took a deep breath.

“Yes?”

“Did Linda—Mrs. Coffin—”

“Yes, I think ‘Mrs. Coffin,’ at least until she’s been in the office for a day or two and you all get to know her.”

“Is she going to be in the office?” Brad asked, startled.

“Yes,” he said crisply; and could not resist adding with a pleasant smile, “I’ve decided I need someone around here I can trust.”

Brad flushed and gave him a startled look, which he returned, smile unchanged. Brad’s eyes shifted first and after a moment he said,

“I guess she did tell you, then.”

“About your call? I thought that was the purpose of it, for her to tell me. What other purpose was it supposed to have?”

“I think that was its purpose,” Brad agreed; and decided to take the offensive. “That was a most unwise thing for you to do, in my estimation.”

“Sit down,” he said; and when Brad did so with a defiant air, “If it was so important, why didn’t you come directly to me? We were both around here yesterday. Why go sneaking off behind my back to bother my wife and try to create trouble between us?”

“That wasn’t my purpose,” Brad said stoutly. “I thought she would be the best one to discuss it with you. You don’t seem to want to pay much attention to me—”

“You were trying deliberately to create trouble in my marriage,” he said coldly, “and you know it. You could have told me privately, she would never have known, the whole thing would have blown over—”

“I wasn’t the only one who saw you, Senator,” Brad said angrily. “Half of Washington did. Linda—Mrs. Coffin—would have heard it very soon anyway. Wasn’t it better to have it come from a friend than have her get it from some enemy who really would be trying to create trouble?”

“Are you serious?”

“Never more so,” Brad said, looking him straight in the eye. “I only told her you went out the door with Lisette. I didn’t tell her anything else. After all, Mark, what more was there? Was there anything more?” He shrugged, apparently quite composed and in command of the situation now. “I don’t know.”

Several lines of action shot through Mark’s mind, but the only one that seemed to make sense for the long haul was the one he adopted in a split second’s cogitation: the one Linda and Chuck had both advised.

“No,” he said levelly, meeting Brad’s gaze with the calm candor he knew he must muster whenever this matter came up from now on, “there wasn’t anything more. And perhaps you were right that it appeared indiscreet. And perhaps you were right to call Linda about it. And perhaps I should thank you for it. But I would appreciate it if in future you will come to me first with anything unpleasant you hear about me. I don’t want you going to Linda or anyone else. You come to me. All right?”

“I was only trying to be helpful in what seemed to be the most discreet and effective way,” Brad said.

“I said I should probably thank you for it, so consider that done. Just be guided by what I say in future, however. Otherwise there may be real trouble.”

“Very well, Mark,” Brad said, quite amicably. “Is that all? May I go now?”

“One further thing. I would appreciate it if you would not discuss the matter with anyone else.”

“Certainly,” Brad said promptly. “My lips are sealed.”

“Good,” he said, not believing him for a second, knowing they would never trust one another again. “I hope I’ll be able to get over to Judiciary for the afternoon session. If anything breaks earlier that you think requires my presence, call me in Armed Services. But I wouldn’t expect it, would you?”

“No, I think not,” Brad said, and now they might have been the best of friends, discussing the Hill’s routine. “It would be pretty unusual if the committee finishes with Charlie before noon.”

“That’s what I figure. If Jim Madison asks, tell him I’ll be there at two.”

“Fine,” Brad said, rising. “I’ll get on over there very shortly.”

“Appreciate it,” he said, nodding and turning back to his desk as Brad went out. He had thought during the night that Brad must go, and very soon; he was completely convinced of it now but until there was something really definite in hand to warrant his firing, he was blocked for the moment. This was not the greatest of his worries as he walked thoughtfully over to Armed Services a little later; but it was one he would have to solve very quickly. Meanwhile Brad would be talking all over the Hill, as grave a threat as Mary Fran had hinted on the very first day they all met.

Fortunately for his state of mind when he reached the committee, his companion on the way over proved as pleasantly diversionary and supportive as he had hoped when he asked for his company—even though they did, unknown to Johnny McVickers, get onto sticky ground before their short walk was over.

Johnny was ecstatic at the prospect of his first big committee hearing, had cut his morning’s classes at Georgetown in order to attend, and chattered away like a little magpie as they walked along. From his conversation Mark gathered that Johnny and Pat Duclos were compatible roommates; that Pat and Rick were still in a state of semi-estrangement; that Rick had successfully conquered half a dozen congressional secretaries, more or less, since his swearing-in; that a secretary of Rick’s from Vermont was in town threatening to sue him if he didn’t marry her; and that word of this had somehow got back to Harvey Hanson, with the imminent possibility that Harvey would soon spread it nationwide through “Washington Inside.”

“I guess,” Johnny remarked, “that a guy shouldn’t play around in this town if he wants to stay out of trouble. Too many people ready to make something of it.”

“That’s right,” Mark agreed, wondering what Johnny’s reaction would be if he found out about his hero. “It doesn’t pay.”

“Thank God that’s something you don’t have to worry about,” Johnny said admiringly. “You’re too smart to get into anything like that, even if you wanted to. And you don’t.”

“That’s right,” he agreed again, and for just a second thought perhaps he should take Johnny into his confidence. But that would be quixotic. Better stick with the strategy, hard though it was obviously going to be. Where was Honest Young Mark Coffin now? Getting mired deeper and deeper in a lie to the world. Was that part of what Washington was all about?

“Hey!” Johnny said. “Are you listening? You seem pretty far away, this morning.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, forcing a smile. “How’s Georgetown coming along?”

“Just fine. I miss Stanford some, though. Do you?”

“A little”—a whole hell of a lot, he thought, if truth were known. He had been safe at Stanford. “But Washington is so much more exciting, really. We have to admit that.”

“It’s the greatest,” Johnny agreed. “I wouldn’t really want to be anywhere else than right where I am, working with you. Are you going to be able to stop Senator Elrod’s bill? Most of my friends and professors at Georgetown hope so.”

“I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully, smiling and nodding from time to time to staff people who greeted him along the corridors. “It doesn’t look too good for me, does it? I guess the committee assignments showed that I don’t have much strength yet—and never may, starting off like this, opposing all the big guns around here.”

“You don’t have any choice,” Johnny said stoutly. “It’s what you believe.”

“Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it,” he said moodily; and promptly got a one-man survey of the feelings of his public, if he had any.

“What do you mean, not worth it?” Johnny demanded in a shocked voice. “Of course it’s worth it, Mark! How can you say a thing like that? You’re one guy around here who’s completely honest and fights for what he thinks is right. That’s why people believe in you so much. You can’t think it’s not worth it! It’s got to be worth it! You can’t let us down like that!”

“Okay,” he said, smiling. “Okay Don’t be so vehement about it. I’m not going to let you down, otherwise I wouldn’t be on my way to Armed Services, would I? And it’s flattering of you to say I’m the only honest guy around here who fights for what he thinks is right. But Jim Elrod’s just as honest, I suspect, and he’s fighting for what he thinks is right. And I guess Charlie Macklin and the President are, too. So it isn’t all one-sided, you see.”

“No,” Johnny admitted, “I suppose it isn’t. But just the same, you’re the best. I think so and so do an awful lot of people. So you’ve got to go ahead, Mark. You can’t let us down.”

“I’m not going to let you down,” he said, feeling a growing apprehension as they could see, down the corridor, lights and cameras focused on the door of the Armed Services Committee, catching each new arrival briefly in their glare. “I’ve asked the Press Gallery staff if they can’t squeeze you into one of the press seats. Keep your ears open and let me know what they’re saying about me, okay? It’ll be a help in judging how things are going.” And, of course, in determining whether or not, in Chuck’s phrase, the lid was indeed being kept on.

“Sure,” Johnny said with a pleased smile, eyes wide with excitement. “That will be great.”

Jim Elrod was facing the cameras as they approached. He lifted a hand over his eyes, peered through the lights and called out cheerfully,

“Here comes that recalcitrant young whippersnapper, my son-in-law. Mark, come over here and tell them how you’re going to eat me up!”

And reaching out a hand he drew Mark forward and pulled him alongside, an arm around his waist as they stood together facing the cameras. Mark gave him a quick look, heart pounding, but Jim smiled back all friendliness and humor: apparently he hadn’t heard anything. Feeling a little more at ease, Mark smiled into the cameras.

“I’m not going to eat you up, Jim,” he said. “I’m just going to swallow your bill, hook, line and billions.”

“May be,” Senator Elrod said, “may be. You’re going to know there’s been a discussion, however. Be prepared for that.”

“I’m prepared,” he said. “May the best man win.”

“Lots of ways of judgin’ who’s best, in Washington,” Jim Elrod said with a smile. “More’n you’ve had any chance to realize yet, I imagine. Come on in, now, and we’ll go at it. Thank you, gentlemen!”

And he skillfully eased them aside and ushered Mark ahead of him into the buzzing committee room, where other lights and cameras, two crowded press tables and a standing-room-only audience awaited them.

“Come on up and take a seat on the dais until we’re ready for you,” Jim murmured. “No point in you sittin’ down in the audience like the nominee for Secretary of Defense, for instance.”

“Oh, is he here?”

“Yes, we’ve got a lot of work to do this mornin’.”

“But shouldn’t you take up his nomination first? I mean, surely his confirmation is more important than my testimony.”

“Mebbe so,” his father-in-law said, “but it isn’t more important than my bill. There’s some advantages to bein’ chairman of a committee, you know.”

And with a bland smile he pulled out a chair for Mark at the end of the semicircle of senatorial seats, next to one of the junior members of the committee, and went on to take his own position in the center. A couple of minutes later he rapped the gavel sharply, declared the committee in session, and began a detailed, cogent and emphatic review of the arguments he had already presented on the Senate floor for his bill to raise the defense budget immediately by the sum of ten billion dollars.

During the course of it, Mark paid attention with an adequate segment of his mind; the rest went darting around the room ascertaining who was there. Chuck was, circled thumb and forefinger raised in an all’s well gesture as he smiled greetings. Linda was, to his surprise, sitting in the first row with a beaming Lyddie; she gave him a bright smile and a little wave, both empty to him but, he supposed, sufficient for the casual eye. Lisette was not there: he supposed there might be some dramatic entry midway in the proceedings, and hoped fervently that by then he would be on the stand with his back to the press tables. He would have enough to do today without having to cope with her. A casual fist reached into his stomach and squeezed it painfully hard at the thought.

Senator Elrod finished his statement, asked Mark to come forward. Herb Esplin, ranking minority member of the committee, interrupted immediately with a puckish smile.

“Mr. Chairman,” he said, “I don’t want to interfere with the other party or mix into its internal problems, but wouldn’t it be much more fitting and respectful to our great new President if the chairman were to defer discussion of his bill and turn instead to the matter of confirming the new Secretary of Defense? I mean, after all, completing the President’s Cabinet is rather important, and it is rather insulting, both to the President and to the distinguished nominee, to keep him here warming his heels while we ramble on about other matters. Shouldn’t he really come first, Mr. Chairman?”

“Why, now,” Jim Elrod said with a reasonable air, “I hadn’t really thought of that. No, sir, that’s a new concept to me. I just thought we might be better able to give the nominee for Secretary of Defense our undivided attention if we got this little—house-keepin’ matter, you might say—out of the way first. But I’ll ask the nominee, Senator. I’ll find out how he feels. Mr. MacDonald, do you feel I’m insultin’ you this mornin’? Am I keepin’ you here warmin’ your heels? Am I deliberately offendin’ you and the President by my actions? Do you regard me as willfully and woefully and arbitrarily hostile to you, Mr. MacDonald? How do you feel?”

“Say yes!” somebody at the press tables murmured audibly, and there was a general burst of laughter, in which Senator Elrod and Mr. MacDonald both joined; after which Mr. MacDonald, like all administration officials directly challenged by the committees upon which they depend for budget and support, hurriedly humbled himself and said that, of course not, Mr. Chairman, he couldn’t imagine the chairman doing any such thing, he felt perfectly comfortable about it, whatever the chairman wanted was ab-so-lute-ly all right with him.

“I knew that’s how you’d feel,” Senator Elrod said with a fatherly smile at Herb Esplin, who grinned cheerfully back. “My friend Senator Esplin always worries so about me. But he knows I know what I’m doin’—”

“You can say that again!” said the press tables’ anonymous commentator, and again there was laughter in which Jim Elrod amicably joined.

“—so he just shouldn’t worry so about me. Now, Senator Coffin, if you will please continue proceedin’ to the witness stand as you were doin’ when so unnecessarily interrupted by my good friend from Ohio—”

And amid a sudden flurry of lights and cameras and a tensing both in himself and in the audience, Mark did as directed.

At the witness stand he faced the committee, raising his right hand.

“Do you want me sworn, Mr. Chairman?”

“Oh no, Senator, certainly not,” his father-in-law said. “We don’t do that to senators because we figure all senators are honest and honorable men who don’t lie. In your case,” he added with a chuckle and a quite genuine respect, “we know that’s true. So please be seated, and proceed as you will.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” he said, thinking: God help me if Jim does find out. But his manner was outwardly calm and unperturbed as he began to speak.

“Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to thank you for permitting me to appear before you this morning. I think my objections to the distinguished chairman’s bill can be stated very briefly and, I hope, succinctly.

“He says he proposes to increase the Defense Department budget immediately by ten billion dollars because the Soviet Union is, in his judgment, rapidly achieving military superiority over the United States and we must counter this at once by throwing in more billions on top of those we are already spending.

“I disagree with both his contention and his solution. I grant that the Soviet Union is indeed engaged, apparently, and has been for some years, upon a determined campaign to vastly increase its military forces all around the world. I do not agree that the way to meet this is to throw good money after bad. I think the way to do it is to economize in our own defense establishment, to eliminate waste, tighten up research and development, eliminate duplication and overlapping, institute much more stringent checks upon military spending, be sure every dollar counts, really get more bang for the buck. Nobody yet has really made that casual, easy slogan work: instead the same old wasteful ways have gone right along, business as usual. It can be stopped. I commend such a course to the new President of the United States and to the distinguished nominee for Secretary of Defense who awaits your confirmation here this morning.”

There was a scattering of applause from the audience behind him. He nodded and went on.

“Thank you. More fundamentally, however, I disagree with the distinguished chairman as to what the Soviet military expansion means. I do not think they are seeking military equality, possibly even in some areas superiority, to threaten us or our allies. I think they are motivated by considerations of their own security and defense. And even if they were not, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, are we not strong enough to withstand them and to successfully counter any aggression they may attempt against us? Why do we poor-mouth our own strength, which is so very great in so many areas? Are we not taking counsel of our fears instead of our advantages? It seems to me they are quite sufficient to meet anything the Soviet Union might, in some misguided and mistaken moment, seek to throw against us.”

This time the applause was stronger and Jim Elrod looked up with a glance that quieted it for the moment.

“For these reasons I am opposed to the bill S.1. I would hope it would be reported out unfavorably by this committee, and I would hope that if it should reach the floor, it would be soundly defeated there.

“Let us make use of what we have: we have enough. And let us have confidence in our own strength and our ability to withstand attack: they are sufficient. Let us not permit hysteria to dominate what we do, because that way lies, not good policy, but poor defense and, ultimately, chaos in all we do.”

This time, as he concluded, the applause was loud, determined, and continuing despite Jim Elrod’s banging of the gavel. Apparently Mark had friends here this morning. Again he bowed his thanks, not daring to look around for fear he might see the face he did not want to see. Order presently returned and his father-in-law leaned forward.

“I thank the Senator for his views,” he said with a twinkle, “and I thank him for livin’ up to his word and bein’ brief and succinct. I don’t know whether the Senator rightly understands what it means to be a senator, because bein’ brief and succinct is certainly not a quality in abundance around here; but I dare say he may find himself able to overcome his tendency toward brevity as time goes by … Now, there’s just one point I want to discuss with the Senator a bit and then mebbe we can move on to Mr. MacDonald and his consideration.

“I will say to Mr. MacDonald, quite seriously, that I do appreciate his patience. I wanted to get my bill squarely before the committee because, for one thing, I want to ask Mr. MacDonald his own views on it; and for another, I wanted to give the distinguished Senator from California a chance to have his say on it right away, because lots of folks want to hear him and there’s a lot of interest in him personally, and I just thought he might like this opportunity. I know I’m sacrificin’ my own chance at television this evenin’ because all they’ll show will be him, but bein’ tied to him by bonds of matrimony with one very near and dear to me, and also bein’ rather fond of him in his own right, I decided to let him go ahead and have his fun with it.”

There was a ripple of laughter and more applause, this time for them both. Mark smiled.

“I thank the distinguished chairman, who certainly knows the regard is mutual. I just hope he won’t be too hard on me in his questioning, because, after all, this isn’t really a fun subject. It’s really deadly serious, as of course the Senator knows.”

“I do know that, of course,” Jim Elrod agreed, “and right on that point I want to ask the Senator this:

“Assumin’ for the moment that all his assumptions are correct, and that we have enough strength to meet any Soviet challenge if they should be so impolite and inconsiderate as to offer us one, does the Senator think we have the will to meet it? And I’m not talkin’ now about some all-out frontal confrontation, which I agree they don’t want and will certainly avoid if they can, but an indirect, sideways, blackmail sort of thing. What if we were suddenly confronted with somethin’ they wanted to do that threatened the security of this country and the free world in Africa or Latin America or Quebec or some other place, and they said: Put up or shut up. What does the Senator think we’d do then?”

“I would certainly hope we would stand up to them and make them back down,” he said. “Not with a lot of bluster and flag-waving, but just with a quiet firmness and determination. I would hope so, and I think we would.”

“I’d hope so, too,” Senator Elrod said, “and I’m glad the Senator is so positive of it, because unhappily I’m not. But now supposin’ his assumptions aren’t quite correct, and we don’t have quite the strength he says we do, and the Soviet Union is militarily superior, and then she faces us with a put-up-or-shut-up situation. What does the Senator think we’d do then?”

“That would be tougher, but again I would hope we would not panic but would stand firm; because of course I don’t accept the Senator’s theory that we are inferior. I think we have ample atomic arsenal and ample throw-weight—”

“Ah,” Jim Elrod said, “but that’s the rub, Senator. Mebbe we do have atomic superiority—though I’m nowhere near as sure of that as the Senator is, bein’ chairman of this committee and aware of a few things he may not be—but do we have it in more conventional areas where any such Soviet challenge as I envisage might likely occur? I wouldn’t expect them to try to eliminate our atomic arsenal, and I wouldn’t expect them to offer us a challenge where we’d feel compelled to use it. That isn’t what I’m talkin’ about. Narrow it down a bit, Senator. You’re thinkin’ global. Get it down to some little place that’s part of their bit-by-bit plan. What then?”

“I don’t know their plans, Senator,” he said, “and I’m not sure you do”—again he received applause and laughter—“but again, I don’t accept your contention that our conventional arsenal is incapable of handling it.”

“It’s not in very good shape,” Senator Elrod observed. “Leavin’ aside missiles and atomic warheads—where, counter to the Senator’s optimistic assumption, we are not ahead, but where possibly we still have sufficient to stand them off if it comes to that, which I don’t think it will—we are behind in ships, planes, tanks, men under arms—pretty much everythin’. So how does the Senator argue that we’re strong enough to withstand any kind of challenge? How does he argue that we shouldn’t immediately improve our position, as my bill provides?”

He paused, leaned forward intently. His voice became grave.

“This is not a game, Senator, you know. It is not somethin’ we can just close our eyes on and hope it will go away. Because as long as the Soviet Union continues to follow the pattern of buildup of the past two decades, it just isn’t goin’ to go away. It’s goin’ to get worse. And we’ve got to face it and do somethin’ about it, in my estimation.”

This time applause came for him; not so heavy, but substantial. Obviously he was both pleased and surprised.

“Senator,” Mark said doggedly when it died down, “I still believe that we have enough atomic power to withstand a direct challenge; and I still think our conventional weapons, over-all, are sufficient to maintain the balance of mutual deterrence so that we cannot be blackmailed in those smaller, less direct challenges you apparently foresee. So we remain, I guess, as we began: unconvinced on both sides. I hope your bill is defeated, and I shall do what I can to secure that result.”

More applause, for him. His father-in-law smiled.

“Well, Senator, I may say that I hope my bill passes, and I shall certainly do what I can to secure that result.”

Lesser applause, but approving, for him.

“If there’s nothin’ further you wish to say—”

“Nothing, thank you, Senator.”

“—and if no other members of the committee wish to question you—”

Around the semicircle a shaking of heads, many friendly smiles for Mark which he took, perhaps naively, to mean support, or at least willingness to consider his argument.

“—then you’ll be excused, with thanks, and we’ll move on to that Cabinet nomination my dear friend the Senator from Ohio thinks is so pressin’ this mornin’. Mr. MacDonald, if you will be so good as to come to the stand—”

And Mr. MacDonald, tall, white-haired, florid-faced, did some shaking hands with Mark as Mark picked up his notes and turned to leave.

“Good work,” Mr. MacDonald murmured in his ear. “I couldn’t agree more.”

Mark smiled.

“You’re going to get a few bumps here, then. But I’ll vote for you.”

“Thanks,” MacDonald said. “I’m not too worried about it.”

“Good luck,” Mark said, and started toward the door, smiling at many in the audience who waved, smiled at him, reached out hands to be shaken. Chuck gave him another approving signal. The television cameras followed him to the door, apparently a triumphal progress: young hero departing scene of victory. At the door Linda and Lyddie were waiting. Linda kissed him with what must have appeared a genuine warmth, Lyddie gave his arm an encouraging pat. He opened the door for them, turned for a last little bow and smile to his father-in-law and the committee, followed them out, closed the door carefully, took a deep breath and turned to find—only Linda and Lyddie. His relief must have shown in his face, for Linda said wryly,

“No such luck. She isn’t here.”

For a second he frowned, but Lyddie forestalled any retort by saying firmly,

“And a good thing, too! Quite enough to worry about this morning without that. I think you did a great job.”

“Thank you,” he said, allowing himself to be diverted, deciding on the safer course. “I thought it went pretty well.”

“It was good,” Linda agreed, coolly objective. “Of course it didn’t convince Daddy, and probably not many others, but you did it well. And he’s right about television: they will all feature you tonight, whether they agree with you or not—and most of them do. So from that standpoint it was a plus. Now where do we go, Judiciary committee?”

He glanced at his watch. It was eleven-fifteen.

“Let me step in the committee offices for a minute and call over there,” he suggested. “If Macklin is still on, maybe you’d like to join me for an early lunch—over at the ‘Rotunda’ restaurant on the House side of the Hill, say. We’ll have to catch a cab.”

“I’ve got a car and driver,” Lyddie said. “At your service, sir!”

He smiled.

“Good. Excuse me just a minute.”

He stepped into the committee office, made his call to Judiciary: Charlie was still on, and would probably continue after lunch. It might be late in the afternoon, even tomorrow, before Mark was called; be there at two p.m. and they’d see what happened. He thanked the Judiciary staff, called his office, spoke to Mary Fran: any calls? “Nothing of any importance,” she said, and added, “And no one of any importance.” “That’s good,” he said, and she said, “Yes,” in grave agreement. “Thanks, friend,” he said, which was, he realized, quite true—she had already become a genuine friend. “You’re welcome,” she said, sounding pleased. “Give old Charlie hell.” “I’ll do my best,” he promised. “Hold down the fort.” “With all guns ready,” she replied. He congratulated himself that he had one rock to depend upon in his office anyway, however slippery the other might be.

He thought the lunch might be awkward, but Lyddie, as he might have known, kept things busy with chatter and thus enabled the two of them to remain reasonably calm and polite. It was not, actually, a bad lunch; though even at the “Rotunda” he could not keep his eyes from wandering furtively from time to time, which he knew was not lost on his companions, though neither made comment. She was simply not there—maybe she wasn’t on the Hill at all today. But he suspected, with a tightening stomach as they went back to the Senate side, that his luck might not hold in Judiciary.

***

Chapter 3

Was it imagination, or was there an extra attentiveness in the way reporters swung around to watch the commotion as they entered? Did committee members and Charles Macklin look at them with an extra appraisal in amused and knowing eyes? Did Jim Madison, standing at the rostrum like some amiable cockatoo, greet his appearance with an extra smirk? Did the audience hum with smug and secret mockery because They Knew?

He shook his head with an angry impatience: that way truly lay disaster. Linda’s hand was tight on his arm; only he knew it was trembling. Lights suddenly glared upon them, the cameras zoomed in: they were on.

“Senator, are you prepared to document your charges against Mr. Macklin?

“I haven’t made any charges,” he said mildly. “I just have some comments I want to get on the record.”

“Aren’t they rather harsh comments, Senator?”

“They are opposed to Mr. Macklin’s confirmation. I don’t know if that makes them ‘harsh.’”

“He seems to think so. He was quite pointed in his comments about you this morning. Did you hear about them?”

“No, I did not,” he said, stomach tightening. “I was at Armed Services, as you know. However, my administrative assistant was here and he’ll fill me in.”

“Will you answer Mr. Macklin?”

“I don’t know,” he said, hearing himself beginning to sound impatient, telling himself he shouldn’t. “I’ll have to wait until I hear what he had to say. Now, if you’ll excuse us—here, dear, why don’t you and Lyddie sit over there”—and he ushered them toward the first two rows of the audience, roped off for important visitors. When they were seated, cameras still on them, he gave Linda a quick kiss, moved toward the witness stand where Jim Madison had come down off the rostrum to talk to Charlie Macklin. He was pleased to see Kal Tokumatsu, Clem Chisholm and Janet Hardesty already in their seats. He would have three friends, anyway.

As he went by the press tables he was greeted with what appeared to be general cordiality. Chuck stood up, shook his hand, drew him aside to murmur quickly in his ear, “I checked during lunch. She called in sick today so you don’t have to worry.” “Thanks, pal,” he responded with a great surge of relief. “I appreciate it…How have things been going?” he asked in a normal tone, including reporters in the immediate vicinity in his inquiry.

“Not bad,” Chuck said cheerfully. “He just thinks you’re a double-dyed son of a bitch for having the nerve to stand in his way.”

“Also immature, irrelevant and immaterial,” AP confirmed.

“To say nothing of illiterate, stupid, guilty of poor judgment and completely unable to appreciate the finer things in life, namely him,” UPI corroborated.

“Is that all?” he asked, feeling still more relief—apparently nothing had surfaced yet.

“That’s all this morning,” Chuck said, a slight warning note in his voice. “He still has a while to go.”

“I suppose,” he agreed, looking around the room freely now. “Anybody seen Brad Harper?”

“He was here at the morning session,” AP said. “I think he went to lunch with Madison and Macklin. He should have an interesting report for you.”

“Oh?” he said, the familiar hand tightening on his stomach once more.

“He’s coming in right now,” Chuck said, and again the warning note came and went.

Brad entered, stood for a moment by the door. He waved, smiled—whatever that meant—indicated he would go and sit with Linda and Lyddie. Mark nodded and turned back, catching Chuck’s eye as he did so.

“Yes,” he said, making it sound as matter-of-fact as possible to other interested ears, “I’ll see him in a minute. I expect I’d better go and say hello to my distinguished colleague and our distinguished nominee, first.”

“Make sure you get your hand back,” UPI suggested.

“I’ll watch it,” he promised, and began to move toward the witness stand as the lights and cameras again swung his way, a buzz arose in the audience, photographers scrambled and shoved.

“Well, my dear boy!” Jim Madison exclaimed, enfolding his hand in his own two soft and pudgy ones. “So here you are! We missed you this morning. You know Mr. Macklin, of course.”

“Of course,” he said easily, while the cameras zeroed in and the press and audience craned to see. “How are you, Charlie?”

“Fine, thank you, Mark,” Charles Macklin said. He was immaculately clad in a beautifully cut gray suit, vest and carefully subdued red tie. With his close-cropped grizzled hair, handsome tan and level steady eyes, he looked every inch the solid statesman.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be here this morning,” Mark said. “I had to be at Armed Services.”

“Ah yes,” Senator Madison said while the reporters hovered close. “Giving them the benefit of your sage counsel on defense!”

“I had a few things to say,” he responded mildly; and suddenly, less mildly, “I understand you had a few things to say about me, Charlie.”

“All in the game,” Charlie Macklin said lightly, “all in the game. If you can’t stand the heat, etc. Certainly nothing more severe than you’ve said about me.”

“I wish you had waited until I was present and hadn’t done it behind my back,” Mark said evenly, “but I guess that’s the game, too, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry you have to spread yourself so thin, Mark,” Charlie said. “I guess it comes of being so knowledgeable on so many things. I suppose eventually you’ll find you have to concentrate.”

“I’m here to concentrate right now,” he said pleasantly. “How much longer before I can take the stand, Jim?”

“Oh, quite some time, I expect,” Senator Madison said. “Late—quite late. Maybe even tomorrow. But don’t go away. It may move faster than we think. Charlie tells me he has about another twenty minutes of prepared statement and then we’ll go right into committee questioning. It just depends.”

“I have no intention of leaving. Gentlemen: thank you. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to say hello to my friends on the committee.”

“Surely,” Jim Madison said. “We’ll be starting in about five minutes.”

“Kal,” he said, reaching up to shake a giant brown hand, “how goes it today?”

“Fine, thanks,” Kal said, beaming down upon him. “How was Armed Services?”

He shrugged.

“About what you’d expect. Jim Elrod and I didn’t convince each other.”

“I couldn’t be there because I had to be at Appropriations,” Jan said, “but I stuck my head in the door for a few minutes while you were testifying. I thought you did very well. I don’t agree with you, of course,” she added with a charming smile, “but if I did agree, certainly there’s no one I’d rather agree with.”

“How’s that for senatorial double-talk?” Clem asked amiably, leaning down to shake hands. “You’ve got your work cut out for you here, boy. He’s a sharp-tongued old bastard, this Charlie Macklin. And he isn’t about to give ground on anything. Including you.”

“It’s mutual. How does the committee stand at the moment?”

“Leaning his way, naturally enough,” Kal said. “It’s pretty unusual to reject a Cabinet nominee. But I wouldn’t say it’s over yet, would you, Jan?”

“Oh no, not at all. You’ll have quite a bit of support here, I think.”

“I hope so.”

“Including three,” Clem said.

“Surely not including Jan,” Mark said. “Not our law-and-order girl.”

“I don’t mind that label as long as ‘law’ comes first,” she said cheerfully. “It makes me more flexible than you think. Anyway, a lot will depend on your presentation here. You have a pretty good chance to turn things around, I think. Mr. Macklin is not a lovable man. Very capable according to his lights, I’m sure. But not lovable.”

“And everybody loves you,” Kal said. “It could make a difference.”

“I’m not so sure of that, but anyway, I’ll try.”

“I hate to break up this mutual admiration society,” Jim Madison said, coming up behind him, “but we really must get things under way now. It’s almost two.”

“We defer to your infinite wisdom as always, Jim,” Clem said. “Good luck, Mark.”

“Thanks,” he said, as Jan and Kal echoed the sentiment and Jim Madison said, “Oh yes, my dear boy, good luck!”

A moment later Jim had taken his place, rapped sharply with the gavel, and the Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Charles Macklin to be Attorney General of the United States was resumed.

For its first few minutes, while the nominee continued to review and defend his record in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, Mark sat beside Brad and listened intently while he reported on the morning session. He was wryly amused but not surprised to find that Brad had evidently been discouraged from sitting too close to Linda and Lyddie. An empty seat separated them, which Mark took. Brad’s account did not surprise him.

“Immature charges based upon rumor and hearsay … unfounded attacks and allegations designed more to increase personal publicity than enhance the public business … onslaughts by one newly come to office who apparently prizes the attentions of the media more highly than he does the truth ….”

Charlie had enjoyed himself. But he had not, at least according to Brad’s account—and certainly the press would have given indication of it—engaged in anything really damaging. Mark could only assume that this was because he didn’t know anything. If he had, old Charlie was the boy to use it.

So he could approach his own testimony feeling more at ease and surer of himself than he had dared hope for. This would apparently be soon, because Charlie seemed to be concluding.

“So, Mr. Chairman,” he said, “I present myself to your honorable committee for whatever examination you care to make of my record and my personal character. I do so with a clear conscience, knowing I have done my best for the people I served in California, and confident I can continue to do my best for the people of the United States in the office to which the President has appointed me. I hope you will base your judgment on the facts, not on empty charges and popular slogans, which are easy to parrot but really add very little to a mature judgment on my qualifications.”

And he swung around and looked squarely at Mark with a challenging air and a sudden wry grin that brought an equally wry bow and wave from Mark and a murmur of amusement from the audience.

“Thank you, Mr. Macklin,” Jim Madison said in his fulsome way. “The committee has been educated and impressed by your fine testimony. I myself have only one question, and then we will go to the other committee members…I might say to my distinguished junior colleague from California, incidentally, that I really do doubt very much that we will be able to finish with the committee until quite late in the afternoon. I doubt if we can put you on the stand before tomorrow morning, Senator. Perhaps you might wish to attend to some other pressing matters and return to us at ten a.m.—?”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” he said, rising, “but if you don’t mind, I think I’ll stay for a little while, at least, just for my own education. If that’s all right with the committee.”

“Certainly,” Senator Madison said. “Certainly! Would you like to take a seat with the committee?”

“I’ll stay here, thanks,” he said, resuming his seat.

“Easier to shoot me in the back from there, I suppose,” Charlie Macklin said in a humorous growl.

“Don’t worry,” Mark said, equally amiable. “I’ll ask you to turn around first.”

“Well,” Senator Madison said. “Well! I’m glad we’re all friends, at least. Mr. Macklin, I said I only had one question. It is this: Will you, if confirmed as Attorney General, base your actions entirely on the Constitution and laws of the United States?”

“I will be sworn to that, Senator,” Charlie Macklin said solemnly, “and even if I weren’t, that would of course be my firm intention. I most assuredly will.”

“Thank you, Mr. Macklin,” Jim Madison said, beaming, while there were a few groans from the press tables. “That sets my doubts at rest. Senator Hardesty, would you like to have the first round of questions?”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I would,” Jan said, leaning forward, svelte and self-possessed as always in a stylishly simple green dress and her trademark diamond brooch. “Mr. Macklin, I don’t like to use clichés about smoke and fire, but there does seem to be a considerable feeling among the general public—”

“Stirred up by the media and the Senator from California,” Charles Macklin interjected.

“Be that as it may,” Jan Hardesty said, looking as though she did not relish being interrupted, “there is a considerable feeling that in some of your activities as district attorney you were more than a little—ruthless, shall we say—in your application of the law. You have commented indirectly on that, but I’d like something a little more specific. For instance, the Ardheim case.”

“Fritzy Ardheim is a worthless little pimp,” Charlie Macklin said sharply. “Furthermore, he is a pervert with a long record of arrests for public indecency and allied activities. When he was arrested last June for murder—”

And they were off into a lengthy discussion of one of Charles Macklin’s most famous cases, in which Fritzy Ardheim had, according to his story, been subjected to police brutality and torture and extremely arbitrary treatment by the D.A’s office. On the strength of this his conviction for the sex murder of a wealthy visiting Texas oilman, father of four, secured by Charlie Macklin in person, had been overturned by the state supreme court, and its action had subsequently been upheld on appeal by the U. S. Supreme Court.

“He is now walking the streets of Los Angeles,” Charlie Macklin remarked, “happily pimping, being a pervert, and, as far as we know, may be planning to murder again next week, Senator. I still think I was right.”

“On that note,” Mark whispered to Linda, “I think I’ll depart for the afternoon. Are you going to stay for a while?”

She nodded.

“I think I will. Why don’t you take Brad with you? I’ll tell you what’s happened.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“My pleasure,” she said. “I’ll see you at the house.”

She gave him an apparently affectionate kiss whose coolness only he could appreciate, and on that note they parted.

He said, “Let’s go,” to Brad and they started walking back to the office.

“Did you have a pleasant lunch?” he asked, and could sense Brad tensing at once. “Come, now,” he said, a sudden tired impatience, “you didn’t think you could lunch with those two without my knowing it, did you? What did you learn?”

“I did go because I thought I might learn something,” Brad said. “Jim Madison invited me, and I thought it would be of help to you.”

“I’m glad you did. And—?”

“Nothing much. Charlie doesn’t like you. It appears to be quite a genuine dislike. I think if he hears anything he’ll use it.”

“Did he hear anything?” he asked, smiling cordially at a group of school kids giggling and chattering on a passing subway car between the office buildings.

“From me?” Brad demanded sharply. “How could he? I didn’t say anything.”

“That’s good,” he said impassively. “I hope not.”

“Mark,” Brad began, “I swear to God—”

“Don’t,” he suggested dryly. “I think God gets tired of it, in this town. Okay, I believe you”—not believing him for one minute, as he knew Brad knew. “What else was said?”

“Jim thinks it’s going to be quite close in the committee.”

“Oh, really?”

“At the moment he thinks the vote stands at about ten to seven, with at least three of the ten wobbling. Apparently you aren’t alone in having doubts about Charlie, even if he is a Cabinet nominee.”

“Good,” he said, feeling suddenly much better about things. “What did Charlie say to that?”

“Nothing printable,” Brad said, with the first genuine amusement he had displayed in several days. “He really wants the job. And I don’t think,” he added with a significant emphasis, “that he’ll hesitate to eliminate anyone who gets in the way, if he can.”

“Hmphf!” he said shortly. “I don’t intend to be eliminated.”

“I’m determined to help you in that,” Brad pledged fervently as they walked along the corridor toward an elevator. “I hope you haven’t heard anything further from—”

Mark stopped dead in the corridor.

“What—?” Brad asked, looking alarmed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said evenly. “Do you?”

“Well, I just thought—I mean, I thought if you had—and if I’m to help—then I ought to know about it. I just want to help you, Mark.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t think you do, either. Isn’t that right?”

Brad stared at him. Finally he shook his head, expression grim. His voice was so plausible that for a moment Mark almost believed him.

“I just wanted to help. I’m sorry you don’t want my help. I won’t offer it again unless you specifically ask for it. I only hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Thank you,” Mark said. “I wonder what headaches Mary Fran has waiting for us in the office.”

But not even his most exaggerated fears could have forewarned him.

“Mark,” she said with a worried expression as soon as Brad had gone into his own office and they were at Mark’s desk with the door shut. “She’s been calling all afternoon, sounding quite hysterical. I don’t know just what to do about it.”

He slumped into his chair, rested chin on hands, looked into space for a long uneasy moment.

“I do,” he said at last, knowing he was again taking a long gamble, but banking on instinct. “Call Judiciary and find out if Chuck is still at the press table. If he is, get him on the line for me.

“Right,” she said, and went out looking upset. In a moment she buzzed him.

“Chuck’s coming to the phone. Hang on.”

“Yeah,” Chuck said, sounding interested but helpfully calm. “What’s up?”

“A friend of ours has been calling here all afternoon, apparently rather hysterical, so Mary Fran says. I wonder if you could call and sound out the situation for me?”

“Damn!” Chuck said; adding at once in a guarded tone, “Yes, Senator, I’ll be happy to get my notes together on that for you. Will you be in your office when I call back?”

“My private office. Many thanks, friend.”

“Sure thing. Stand by.”

An agonizing fifteen minutes later his private phone rang.

“She is hysterical, damn it. It doesn’t make sense. She isn’t like that. I’d say she was on something, but she isn’t like that, either. What the hell have you started, anyway?”

“I’m damned if I know,” he said, feeling suddenly a thousand years old, “but I’m apparently going to need more help than I thought to get out of it. What seems to be the main thrust of it?”

“She loves you—”

“B.S.”

“I don’t know, Mark, I really don’t know. The whole thing is so out of character that I can’t quite get a handle on it, at the moment. Anyway, that’s what she says. She does love you, and you’re hurting her terribly with your lack of understanding, and if she doesn’t hear from you very soon—well, she just doesn’t know what she might do to herself, she’s that desperate.”

“That’s blackmail,” he said flatly, “and I don’t believe it for one minute.”

“It is,” Chuck agreed, “but I don’t know whether I believe it or not. She certainly doesn’t sound like herself.”

“Did you ever go to bed with her?”

There was the slightest pause, then honesty.

“Once. During the campaign when we were out West someplace in some God-forsaken hellhole of a cattle town with nothing else to do. But that was just fun and games and it was over next morning and neither of us has ever mentioned it again.”

“And that, I take it, is her usual style?”

“Yes, as near as I know, up to now. But with you it seems to be different—or she says it is, anyway. It’s your fatal charm, Mark.”

“I just don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it. What do you think she’s up to?”

“At best, she’s fallen for the glamour and wants something a little more regular out of it. At worst—well, I don’t know. It could be your home—your career—her life—your life. I don’t know, Mark. She’s got me baffled.”

“So what does she want me to do, come see her again?”

“She didn’t say. Anyway, I wouldn’t.”

“No, I certainly won’t.”

“But she does want to ‘hear’ from you. I suppose this means a phone call, and I suppose that would mean—”

“A lot of weeping and wailing until I gave in and did go to see her.”

“Yes. Stay off it.”

“I will. But you said something about she didn’t know what she’d do to herself. Is that a suicide threat, or what?”

“I suppose it could be. Or, as you say, just emotional blackmail. She says she’d tried to call you but Mary Fran won’t let her through.”

“That’s right, and she isn’t going to, either. I suppose the next step is for her to call Linda.”

“Or my boss, maybe, to get it in the column.”

“Yes,” he agreed, a sudden chill enveloping him. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Or Jim Madison. Or Charlie Macklin. Or the President, even. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Could you go and talk to her for me?”

“Mark—I’d rather not. I suppose I could, if you insisted, but—please don’t insist. The whole thing could get so messy so fast that I just want to stay out of it as much as possible. Except, of course, that I don’t mind talking to her on the phone. I’ll be glad to do that for you any time you want me to.”

“I understand. I have no right to ask you to do anything at all, really. I’m very grateful you’re doing this much.”

“No, that’s okay. As I said earlier, I like you, I believe in you, I want to help you out of this. But I’ll say again I’m puzzled as to how to go about it. It’s so out of character for her; it just doesn’t ring true. And yet—she really does sound way off balance. Maybe it’s just one of those things that happen sometimes to the coolest and most self-confident of us. Something snaps, and there we are, back in the primeval with the rest of the vertebrates.”

“You don’t really think she’d try to commit suicide, do you? I mean, it’s so ridiculous!”

“I don’t really think she would … and yet—… Mark, I just don’t know.”

There was a silence, heavy with thought at both ends of the line.

“All right,” he said at last, voice ragged with strain, “do this for me, if you will. Call her back. Tell her you’ve talked to me. Say that I am truly sorry for what happened, and that I am truly sorry that she has found it so upsetting. Say that I would like to be her friend here on the Hill and that I hope tomorrow or next day, whenever she feels like it, she’ll drop in to the office and we can talk it over quietly and thoughtfully as good friends should. Tell her I don’t want to talk now, because I don’t think it would help either of us to do it in an emotional state. But emphasize I do want to be her friend, and am ready to be, as long as she wants me to.”

“She isn’t going to settle for that, you know.”

He sighed.

“No, probably not. But we’ve got to try. Okay?”

“Okay. Want me to call you back there?”

“Yes, I’ll be here till six or so.”

“Right.”

Fifteen minutes later:

“It isn’t going to work, Mark. You’ve got to see her yourself.”

“But I can’t.”

“I know that. I told her that. I don’t think she even listened.”

“Well, God damn it!”

“I know, Mark. Believe me, I’m on your side. But she isn’t going to budge.”

“And neither,” he said with a cold conviction, “am I. So there we are … Where are we?”

“I guess all you can do is just sit tight and hope she won’t do anything rash. And just brazen it out, if she does. That’s about all there is.”

“But I’m not like this!” he cried in sudden bitter protest. “This isn’t me at all! I’m a decent guy who doesn’t get mixed up in things like this! I’m somebody other people believe in! I’m Mark Coffin. What’s happening to me? Where have I gone?”

“Gone to Washington,” Chuck said with an equally bitter irony. “And now you’re stuck with it … Look, Mark: Keep in touch, okay? I’ll be home all evening—Bridget had a great little boy this morning, incidentally—so I’ll be alone—and if you want to talk, call me and we’ll talk. Or if you want me to call her again, I’ll do that, too. Just let me know.”

“No,” he said slowly, “I don’t think there’s any point in getting you involved again in talking to her. You’ve done more already than I had any right to ask. Just let me know if you hear anything—that might be the best thing. I’ll be home, too.”

“Okay, I’m sorry as hell, Mark. It’s a damned shame to have to worry about this just when you’ve got a couple of major battles on your hands. But—that’s the way it is, I guess. Keep in touch.”

“Thanks for everything.”

“Don’t mention it. The important thing is to bring you through this. I’m glad to do whatever I can.”

“I doubt if others will be that friendly.”

“Well—we’ll just have to see. All we can do is hope.”

Hope dwindled at the house. One glance at Linda was enough for that.

“She called,” he said. She nodded.

“Oh yes, of course. What else would she do? Not once, either: three times since six o’clock.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“The first time.” She shivered. “She didn’t sound sane. The last two times I just hung up.”

“What did she say the first time?”

“Accusations. Threats. Promises to create a terrible scandal. I expect she can, if she wishes.”

“Yes,” he said bleakly.

“After all, you’ve given her the power.”

“Lin”—he said humbly—“please.”

“All right,” she said with a sigh. “I’m sorry. Do you want a drink before dinner?”

“No, I don’t think so. I expect I may need all my wits about me tonight. Where are the kids?”

“Watching television in Linnie’s room. I thought they’d be better out of the way.”

“Yes … Lin—”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for everything.”

“That isn’t necessary,” she said, eyes filling with tears for a moment. “I’m a political wife. It goes with the territory.”

“Anyway—thanks.”

“Oh sure,” she said, brushing the tears angrily away. “It’s nothing, really. Just my whole life turned upside down.”

“I’m sorry,” he said helplessly. “I can’t say more than that, I guess.”

“Don’t try,” she said. “You might make it worse—if it could be. Oh, God damn it, there’s that God damned telephone again!”

“Let it ring!” he ordered harshly, and for six rings they did. Then she started toward it.

“This is ridiculous. We’ve got to face up to it. Anyway, it may be Daddy, or who knows.”

“I’ll get it,” he said, and on the eighth ring, stomach in knots, but managing to make his voice firm, did so.

“Yes,” he demanded, too loudly. “What do you want?”

“It’s me, Mark,” Chuck said hurriedly, voice tense and shaken, “Sorry to bother you, but—”

“Oh hell.”

“She just called me. She’s says she’s taken an overdose of sleeping pills.”

“Jesus! Do you believe her?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“What is it, Chuck?” Linda asked, quite composed, from the kitchen extension.

“Hi, I was just telling him Lisette called me a minute ago and said she’s taken an overdose of sleeping pills.”

“Jesus! Do you believe her?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I really don’t. Maybe it’s just an attention-getter. Maybe she just wants to scare the hell out of Mark. Maybe she hasn’t taken any pills at all. I wouldn’t put it past her, the mood she’s in.”

“But you’re not sure,” Linda said.

“No,” Chuck said soberly. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, I am,” Mark said angrily. “I don’t think for one minute that it’s anything but a stunt. Just a damned, stupid, two-bit stunt.”

“You have to think that,” Linda observed. “We can be a little more objective.”

“Yes,” Chuck said slowly. “You could be wrong.”

“Yes,” Linda said. “And we don’t dare be wrong, do we?”

“No, we don’t,” Chuck said with a sudden conviction. “I’m going to call the police and then I’m going to go over there. I’ll call you later.”

“Thank you, Chuck,” Linda said. “You’re a real friend.”

“I try to be.”

“You are,” Mark said. “I don’t know how I can ever—”

“Forget it. I’ll call you in a little while. Try not to worry.”

“Mark,” Linda said after he rang off, “hang up the phone and do have just one drink. It won’t hurt and you need the relaxation. I’m going to call Daddy.”

“Why?”