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paltry salaries of two menial jobs. She deserves a better life than that, Danna."
    Danna Dardrey wrinkled her brows. "She's still a young woman and, as I recall from one brief encounter with her, rather an attractive one. Surely she could find another husband?"
    Pedro Goldfarb fielded the question with one of his own. "Is that what you did when your husband died back during World War Two, Danna?"
    The auburn hair swirled as she shook her head. "Oh, Pedro, you know better. No, I never remarried, but my own situation was different. I had the home, the security and the moral support of Kevin's parents, who were fairly well off, and I also had Kevin's GI and civilian insurance."
    "Nonetheless," he insisted, "don't you think you'd have been better off, more comfortable, more fulfilled in many ways had you found and married some } decent, honest, personable man with a good job and income? So why didn't you do just that, Danna? Why didn't you give your sons a new father, at least, a role model to guide their development?"
    "Tom Dardrey, Kevin's dad, was all the role model any boy could've asked for, Pedro," she replied. "He exulted in having two new sons to make into the same kind of fine young man he had made of their father. It helped him better to bear up under the

    loss of Kevin, I think. As to why I never remarried, well, I just didn't want another man, any other man, for many years . . . not until I met. . . until Fitz and I found each other, finally. I was never rich, but I was able to provide all the necessities and even a few small luxuries for me and my sons through my working income and the investment f d made with Kevin's insurance policies and, later, the modest bequest his father left us. Besides, I just was stubborn enough to need to make it in this world on my own."
    The dark man nodded. "Just so. Then can you not believe that perhaps Will's young widow harbors a similar need to, as you just said, make it on her own, unassisted by others, until she comes across her own Fitz, wherever and whenever?"
    While she digested the question, he sipped at his cognac, then asked another: "How good is your German, Danna? Can you speak the language at all? Understand it spoken with any degree of accuracy? Read or write it?"
    She sighed and shook her head again. "No, Pedro, none at all. Way back when I could've taken German, but instead I took French as my foreign language elective . . . but don't ask me at this late date about that one, either; I can't even recall how to say or to write 'My aunt eats green pencils.' I once read somewhere that one of the hallmarks of the Celtic race is a facility for languages. Well, if so, then I guess I'm something other than Celtic; I even flounder in Latin, and I've been schooled in that since grade school."
    Pedro smiled. "There are no pure races of mankind anywhere in this world, Danna. Didn't you

    know that? All humans are mongrels, a duke's mixture of who knows how many strains and tag-ends of extinct races. The only thing that humanity shares is a generally similar body shape . . . that and an inherently savage, murderous, predatory nature."
    "But Pedro," she expostulated, "Mr. Hara says
    that.. r
    "Ah, yes, the venerable and most eminent Mr. Hara." He nodded. "I had intended to ask how you two were getting along. How is my good old friend Tadahira these days?"
    "We had dinner together tonight. He often asks that I pass on to you his regards. He speaks of you quite often, Pedro; he seems of the opinion that, all tilings considered, you and I are more like each other than we are like anybody else. We've dis-* cussed Fitz, too, and Mr. Hara is very anxious to meet and talk with him as well.
    "Pedro, how old would you say he is?"
    The dark man shrugged. "Probably, exactly as old as he says he is, since I've never known him to lie about anything. But comes to that, Danna, I've never asked his age and I don't think he ever volunteered the information. Why?"
    "It's just that he was speaking