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end now, Vic thought, as a matter of principle: it was nearly six in the morning, and what was the use of going home to sleep now, since tomorrow was ruined anyway? He might pass out, but he'd stay. He was too drunk to realize, Vic supposed, that he could have Melinda all the afternoon tomorrow if he wanted her.
           Suddenly, as Vic watched him, Ralph staggered backward, as if something invisible had pushed him, and sat down heavily on the sofa. His face was shiny with perspiration. Melinda pulled him toward her, her arm around his neck, and began to cool his temples with her fingers which she dampened against her glass. Ralph's body was limp and sprawled, though his mouth had set grimly and his eyes still bored into Vic as if he were trying to hang on to consciousness now by simply staring fixedly at one thing.
           Vic smiled at Melinda. "Maybe I'd better make those eggs. He looks as if he could use something."
           "He's fine!" Melinda said defiantly.
           Whistling a Gregorian chant, Vic went into the kitchen and put a kettle of water on for coffee. He held up the bourbon bottle and saw that Ralph had finished about four-fifths of it. He went back into the living room. "How do you like your eggs, Ralph—besides juggled?"
           "How do you like your eggs, darling?" Melinda asked him.
           "I jus' like 'em—like 'em juggled fine," Ralph mumbled. "One order of juggled eggs," Vic said. "How about you, puss?" "Don't call me 'puss'!"
           It was an old pet name of Vic's for her that he hadn't used in years. She was glaring at him from under her strong blond eyebrows, and Vic had to admit she was not quite the little puss she had been at the time he married her, or even at the earlier part of this evening. Her lipstick was smeared, and the end of her long, upturned nose was shiny and red, as if some of her lipstick had got on it. "How do you want your eggs?" he asked.
           "Do' want any eggs."
           Vic scrambled four eggs with cream for himself and Melinda, since Ralph was in no condition to eat any, but he made only one piece of toast, because he knew Melinda would not eat toast now. He didn't wait for the coffee, which was not quite dripped through, because he knew Melinda wouldn't drink coffee at this hour either. He and Mr. Gosden could drink the coffee later. He brought the scrambled eggs, lightly salted and peppered, on two warm plates. Melinda again refused hers, but he sat beside her on the sofa and fed them to her in small amounts on a fork. Every time the fork approached, she opened her mouth obediently. Her eyes, staring at him all the while, had the look of a wild animal who trusts the human food-bringer just barely enough to accept the food at arm's length, and then only if there is nothing in sight that resembles a trap and if every movement of the food-bringer is slow and gentle. Mr. Gosden's red-blond head was now in her lap. He was snoring in an unaesthetic way with his mouth open. Melinda balked at the last bite, as Vic had known she would.
           "Come on. Last bite," Vic said.
           She ate it.
           "I suppose Mr. Gosden had better stay here," Vic said, because there was nothing else to say about Mr. Gosden.
           "I have every intention of 's shtaying here," Melinda said. "Well, let's stretch him out."
           Melinda got up to stretch him out herself, but his shoulders were too heavy for her in her condition. Vic put his hands under Ralph's arms and pulled him so that his head was just short of the sofa arm.
           "Shoes?" Vic asked.
           "Don't you touch 's shoes!" Melinda bent over Ralph's feet wobblingly and began to untie his shoelaces.
           Ralph's shoulders shook. Vic could hear the faint chatter of teeth.
           "He's cold. I'd better get a blanket," Vic said.
           "I'll get the blanket," Melinda staggered toward her bedroom but evidently