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carefully.
    “About what?”
    “The complex. You mentioned some doubts. Tonight’s meeting must have raised others. Will you change your proposal?”
    “No.”
    “No? Building the complex as planned now would be environmentally dumb.”
    ““Dumb’?” he mocked with a grin.
    She felt put down with that one echoed word. Exasperated, she threw her hands in the air. “I gave all the reasons in that auditorium. I won’t repeat them now. You’re being bullheaded. Do you go about all your building projects this way?”
    “What do you know about my building projects?” he asked with a trace of lingering amusement.
    “Nothing. I had only heard of the Hansen Corporation before tonight. But if it’s like most other businesses, it puts the dollar bill before every other consideration.”
    “Not always.” His voice carried a warning now, but she sat straighter and barreled on.
    “Then you acknowledge that profit is your raison d’etre?”
    To her chagrin, Ross laughed. “I would never be where I am today if I didn’t have an eye out for profit!”
    She felt oddly betrayed. “That’s really pathetic,” she said, recalling the tall, handsomely bearded man in jeans, boots, and a simple peasant shirt. “I’d have thought that, with what you stood for at one time, you might have minimized crass capitalism. You have sold out, which just goes to show how terribly wrong one person can be in the judging of another, or how necive.”
    Ross had risen. His eyes were too dark to distinguish anger from hurt. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You didn’t know me then, and you certainly don’t know me now. When I returned from Africa that last time with my grungy denims, my dashiki, and my beard”-his eyes narrowed-“it took me all of a week to shuck them. And do you know why?”
    He went on only when she shook her head. “Because I saw that there was more narrow-mindedness, more prejudice, coming from the mouths of the hippie generation than anywhere else. Because of my appearance, I was assumed to be one of them, until they discovered that I didn’t always think the way they did, that I had a mind of my own. The true sign of a liberal, Chloe, is accepting people for their differences, respecting their right to be different. Those others, the ones who prided themselves on being nonconformists, declared all-out war on the establishment. And what happened?”
    Without waiting for her response he went on, his voice low but relentless, his gaze intense. He put his hands on the table. “When was the last time you saw a flower child? Hmm? They’ve vanished. Disbanded. Lost the war.” The pause he took was for a deep breath. “Well, I haven’t lost. I’m working from within to change things. Did that ever occur to you, Chloe? You’ve been so quick to label me first one way, then the other. Did it ever occur to you that your impression wasn’t even skin deep, that there’s a me under it all?”
    It was a while before Chloe was able to speak. She certainly didn’t know Ross. This speech presented a new side of him. And he was right.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “It was wrong of me to do that. I’m not always that way.” She tried a smile in apology. To her relief, it seemed to work. His features relaxed.
    “Only with me, eh?” He inhaled deeply and stood tall, holding his breath for a minute while his head fell back, then releasing it as his eyes met hers.
    She felt suitably contrite and suddenly drained. “You have a knack for bringing out my extremes. I guess I’m just tired. It’s late.” A glance at the bold face of Ross’s watch told her exactly how late. “Oh, Lord! It’s two in the morning!” She caught her breath, looked at the ceiling, and whispered, “Do you think we’ve woken anyone up?”
    Ross’s chiding was gentle. “No need to whisper now. If our yelling didn’t wake ‘em, nothing will.” He took the two empty coffee cups and brought them to the sink.
    Chloe wiped off