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father’s house she accepted the double privileges of bride and visitor. “No maid?” she asked when Elaine went into the kitchen to prepare their first meal.
    â€œYour father doesn’t like having anyone around. We have a cleaning woman once a week. She’s very thorough.”
    â€œDoesn’t Daddy object to her?”
    â€œWe usually go out that day, drive someplace, or he plays golf. Your father loathes these women chattering at him. Besides,” Elaine hated herself for using the tone of apology, “there’s very little to do with only two of us in the house.”
    As though bestowing a favor, Cindy offered to make the twin beds in the guest room. Often they were left unmade until late afternoon. Did it matter that she and Don liked to sleep late? After a very few mornings under her father’s roof, Cindy learned there was not much to get up for. No parties were given for the visitors, no introductions offered, no invitations sent by people who dutifully entertained friends’ houseguests. Instead, the young people endured long drives with Fletcher and Elaine, went on sightseeing trips to the few unexciting places that contrasted so drearily with the glowing advertisements of the California All-Year Club. Over endless dinners in overdecorated, overpriced, high-style restaurants, Fletcher sat dumb while Elaine made conversation, laughed at Don’s jokes, hastened to answer when Cindy forgot that she was not to ask Fletcher direct questions in public places.
    â€œI think you’re hurting Daddy more than helping him with all this privacy stuff,” Cindy said when she was alone with Elaine. “In my opinion he’d be a lot better off if you’d make an effort to have some kind of social life.”
    â€œHe doesn’t want it.”
    â€œHe may tell you that, but believe me, a man of his sort, always so lively and social, with so many connections, I mean! Not even belonging to a country club.”
    â€œHe prefers the public course. He doesn’t want a lot of people getting chummy and compassionate.”
    â€œThe right sort of people wouldn’t make him feel so badly,” Cindy argued. “No wonder he’s so desperate, doing nothing but mooning around this gloomy old house. It’s not at all healthy, psychologically.”
    â€œIt’s the way he wants it.” Elaine despised herself for the tone of appeasement.
    Cindy would never give up an argument. Even when she was proven wrong she exercised the right of reassertion. Elaine grew more and more strained in conversations, which she tried to keep Fletcher from hearing. Cindy’s voice, as modern as her tastes, was hard, emphatic, and loud.
    One of the girl’s school friends was the daughter of a millionaire whose name was printed in gold on the plate-glass windows of loan and trust banks all over the city. Nan, who was exactly Cindy’s age, had been married for three years to Rex Burke, a young man who had become almost as famous as his father-in-law. When Don and Cindy arrived, the young Burkes were away on “a private yacht.” Cindy was sadly disappointed and could not help showing that she considered the first two weeks of the vacation a sad waste. When Nan returned, Cindy and her husband were invited to spend Sunday at her house at Newport Beach. Cindy’s rapture at the invitation was trivial in comparison with the ecstasy of her return.
    â€œIf I ever saw gracious living! Three in help, at the seashore.”
    â€œThey’ve got a honey of a cruiser, eighty feet,” Don reported with slightly less frenzy.
    â€œTwo Rollses. She and he both drive them.”
    â€œIt’s a deduction for Rex,” Don hastened to explain. “He’s executive assistant to Nan’s father.” Don’s eloquent dark eyes fixed themselves on his father-in-law’s face.
    Cindy’s father did not need an executive assistant. She announced,