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like them, you know?”
    â€œWho’s them?” asked Charles Forbes.
    â€œClients of the agency and a lot of the time their accountants,” Edmund replied. “They all prefer to talk business at the lunch table instead of face to face in my office. ’S funny.” Edmund rubbed a forefinger along the side of his arched nose. “I have to have one or two drinks with them—my usual restaurant knows now to make them weak—otherwise our clients might think I’m the Infernal Revenue Department itself putting—honesty before expediency or some such.” Edmund’s face again cracked in a smile that did not last long.
    Pity , Lucienne thought, and she almost said it. A strange word to think of, because pity she had not for Edmund. Lucienne exchanged a glance with Charles, then with Tom Strathmore, who was smirking.
    â€œThey call me up at all hours of the night too. California doesn’t seem to realize the time dif—”
    â€œTake your phone off the hook at night,” Charles’ wife Ellen put in.
    â€œOh, can’t afford to,” Edmund replied. “Sacred cows, these worried clients. Sometimes they ask me questions a pocket calculator could answer. But Babcock and Holt have to be polite, so I go on losing sleep . . . No, thanks, Peter,” he said as Peter tried to pour more drink for him. Edmund also pushed gently aside a nearly full ashtray whose smell perhaps annoyed him.
    Lucienne would ordinarily have emptied the ashtray, but now she didn’t. And Magda? Magda was glancing at her watch as Lucienne looked at her, though she chatted now with Charles on her left. Twenty-eight she was, enviably young to be sure, but what a drip! A bad skin. Small wonder she hadn’t been married before. She still kept her job, Edmund had said, something to do with computers. She knitted well, her parents were Mormons, though Magda wasn’t. Really wasn’t, Lucienne wondered?
    A moment later, having declined even orange or tomato juice, Magda said gently to her husband, “Darling . . .” and tapped her wristwatch face.
    Edmund put down his glass at once, and his old-fashioned brown shoes with wing tips rose from the floor a little before he hauled himself up. Edmund looked tired already, though it was hardly eight. “Ah, yes, the theater—Thank you, Lucienne. It’s been a pleasure as usual.”
    â€œBut such a short one!” said Lucienne.
    When Edmund and Magda had left, there was a general “Whew!” and a few chuckles, which sounded not so much indulgent as bitterly amused.
    â€œI really wouldn’t like to be married to that,” said Peter Tomlin, who was unmarried. “Frankly,” he added. Peter had known Edmund since he, Peter, was twenty-two, having been introduced via Charles Forbes, at whose publishing house Peter had applied for a job without success. The older Charles had liked Peter, and had introduced him to a few of his friends, among them Lucienne and Edmund. Peter remembered his first good impression of Edmund Quasthoff—that of a serious and trustworthy man—but whatever virtue Peter had seen in Edmund was somehow gone now, as if that first impression had been a mistake on Peter’s part. Edmund had not lived up to life, somehow. There was something cramped about him, and the crampedness seemed personified in Magda. Or was it that Edmund didn’t really like them ?
    â€œMaybe he deserves Magda,” Anita said, and the others laughed.
    â€œMaybe he doesn’t like us either,” said Peter.
    â€œOh, but he does,” Lucienne said. “Remember, Charles, how pleased he was when—we sort of accepted him—at that first dinner party I asked Edmund and Lillian to here at my place. One of my birthday dinners, I remember. Edmund and Lillian were beaming because they’d been admitted to our charmed circle.” Lucienne’s laugh was disparaging of their circle and