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involuntary, genuine admiration, then censure. But—the admiration came first! Chic grinned; the censure did not bother him.
    “Goddam you,” Maury said, “you better get into the office by no later than nine.” His tone said: I wish I were you. I envy you, damn you.
    “Aw,” Chic said, “I’ll be in, soon as I can.” He glanced toward the bedroom and Julie. She was sitting up. Perhaps Maury saw her. Perhaps not. In any case it was time to conclude the conversation. “So long, Maury, old man,” Chic said. And rang off.
    “Who was that?” Julie said sleepily. “Was that Vince?”
    “No. My boss.” Chic put on the coffee water for her. “Hi,” he said, walking back into the bedroom and seating himself on the bed beside her. “How are you?”
    “I forgot my comb,” Julie said, pragmatically.
    “I’ll buy you one from the hall dispenser.”
    “Those measly little plastic things.”
    “Um,” he said, feeling fond of her, feeling sentimental. The situation, she in bed, he sitting beside her in his pajamas—it was a bittersweet situation, reminding him of his own previous last marriage of four months ago. “Hi,” he said, patting her on the thigh.
    “Aw god,” Julie said. “I wish I was dead.” She did not say it accusingly, as if it was his fault, or even as if she meant it passionately; it was as if she were resuming a conversation from the night before. “What is the purpose of it all, Chic?” she said. “I like Vince, but he’s so goofy; he’ll never grow up and really bear down at the business of living. He’s always playing his games of being the embodiment of modern organized social life, the estab-man, pure and simple, whereas actually he’s not. But he’s young.” She sighed. It was a sigh that chilled Chic because it was a cold, cruel, utterly dismissing sigh. She was writing off another human being, severing herself from Vince with as little spilled emotion as if she had returned a book borrowed from the building’s library.
    Good grief, Chic thought, this man was your husband. You were in love with him. You slept with him, lived with him, knew all there was to know about him—in fact knew him better than I can, and he’s been my brother for longer than you’ve been alive. Women down underneath, he thought, are tough. Terribly tough.
    “I, uh, have to get to work,” Chic said, nervously.
    “Is that coffee you have on for me, in there?”
    “Oh yeah. Sure!”
    “Bring it here, then, will you, Chic?”
    He went to get the coffee, while she dressed.
    “Did old Kalbfleisch make his speech this morning?” Julie asked.
    “I dunno.” It hadn’t occurred to him to turn on the TV, although he had read in the paper last night that the speech was due. He didn’t give a damn what the old man had to say, about anything.
    “Do you really have to trot off to your little company and go to work?” She eyed him steadily and he saw, for what perhaps was the first time in his life, that she had lovely natural color in her eyes, a polished slab texture of rock-smoothness and brilliance that needed the natural daylight for it to be brought out. She had, too, an odd, square jaw and a slightly large mouth with a tendency to turn down, tragedy-mask like, with her lips unnaturally red and lush, drawing attention away from her rather drably-colored hair. She had a nice figure, rounded, pleasant, and she dressed well; that is, she looked splendid in whatever she wore. Clothes seemed to fit her, even mass-produced cotton dresses that other women would have had difficulty with. Now she stood wearing the same olive-colored dress with round black buttons which she had worn the night before, a cheap dress, really, and yet in it she looked elegant; there was no other word for it. She had an aristocratic carriage and bone structure. It showed in her jaw, her nose, her excellent teeth. She was not German but she was Nordic, perhaps Swedish or Danish. He thought, as he glanced at her, that she looked