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came time to make her own lunch selection, Mrs. Potter was happily deliberate, even as she realized that she appeared embarrassingly greedy as judged by the restrained choices of her friends.
    The enticements were many. From them. Mrs. Potter assembled for herself a bed of buttery Boston lettuce with a few pale spears of endive, both of these a treat often unobtainable at her nearest Arizona market. She added a few sprigs of dark green native watercress, which she felt sure had come from watery beds in Quaise, east of town. For color she added some crisp radish slices and several wedges of bright (but undoubtedly tasteless, she knew) Florida tomatoes. Then, even though she saw that her friends were forgoingthe heartier items, she decided not to feel guilty about her level of near starvation. She served herself generously with julienne strips of rare roast beef. She added a few neat matchsticks of Swiss cheese. With a rueful grimace at Gussie, her hostess, she added several rings of crisp red onion. Then, with a mental apology to all doctors of diet and health and beauty, she topped the whole thing with a good spoonful of rich blue cheese dressing.
    “Now, Peter, what does this call for?” she asked her restaurant host. “I’m embarrassed at what an enormous plateful I have and how hungry I am—but doesn’t it look
wonderful?”
    “Couldn’t be improved,” Peter told her, “except for this snip of fresh basil to give flavor to the tomatoes. Pitch in now, Potter, and I’ll have Jadine bring some rye bread for you. That’s all it needs.”
    When Mrs. Potter returned to the window table, Beth was eating her even heartier fare with untroubled enjoyment. Dee was drinking tea, and Beth’s roll basket was being steadily depleted.
    “Did you notice if Peter has any lovage up there?” Beth asked as she surveyed the fresh fruit plate she had ordered along with her hot chicken pie. “This has a good cream cheese dressing, but it needs a little something. One thing I added to my own herb garden last year was lovage, and it’s awfully nice with fruit. I think I’ll just go up and take a look.”
    The others at the table were slowly, almost painfully so, it seemed to Mrs. Potter, squeezing wedges of fresh lemon over salad greens, over cucumber and raw mushroom slices, over chopped raw zucchini and cauliflower. They had elected a variety of herb choices, including that of fresh nasturtium blossoms on Mary Lynne’s leafy platter. No one else had succumbed to the lure of an oily dressing.
    Her own group had barely begun before various softball girls were returning for second platefuls. Jadine was rushing about, moving between the guests with fresh plates and replenishments for the long table.
    Mrs. Potter remembered later, when it seemed necessary to do so, that Peter had called, “Higginson, could you orsomebody spell me for a minute? Tony’s taking a breather and I’m needed for a jiffy in the kitchen. You guys know as much about herbs as I do anyway.” They had all, except for herself and Dee, briefly served a turn at the hydroponic garden, It seemed Peter’s way of honoring their garden club expertise and of involving them all in the ritual, one of his ways of keeping them all entertained and amused.
    When Beth took her turn, she had turned to Mrs. Potter in explanation. “Peter knows I’m an herb gardener,” she said. “Most of us are, actually. Anyway, he knows I’ve suggested comfrey tea to Ozzie deBevereaux for his arthritis, and he says at least it won’t hurt him.” Then, spotting Edie at the buffet, she called out, “How
is
the boss today? Taking the day off too? I’ll stop in with the comfrey and say hello before dinner.”
    The return of Count Ferencz caused new excitement, she recalled, and whoever was then in charge relinquished the herb-cutting scissors. After that she only remembered Beth’s decision about dessert, which proved to be the rum pie, after all. It had been, she said again