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at the two drinks standing on the bar. “Those look good,” she said, “Let’s have those.”
    He looked at her. “Seriously?”
    “Why not? We were here first. Are you scared of life?”
    He grinned at her and got up suddenly. She didn’t stop him, rather to his surprise. Much more so, there was no squawk when he boldly clutched the glasses and returned with them. Jane applauded soundlessly. He bowed and set down the drinks with a flourish. They sipped.
    She smiled. “That’s another of my theories. You can get away with anything if you aren’t scared. Other people can’t stop you, because they’re more scared than you are.”
    Carr smiled at her.
    “What’s that for?” she asked.
    “Do you know the first name I gave you?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “The frightened girl. Incidentally, what did startle you so when you sat down at my desk this afternoon. You seemed to sense something in me that terrified you. What was it?”
    She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. You’re getting serious again,” she warned him.
    He grinned. “I guess I am.”
    More people had begun to drift in. By the time they finished their drinks, all the other booths were filled. Jane was getting uneasy.
    “Let’s go somewhere else,” she said abruptly, standing up.
    Carr started to reply, but she had slipped around a couple approaching their booth and was striding toward the door. A fear took hold of him that she would get away like this afternoon and he would never see her again. He jerked a dollar bill from his pocket-book and dropped it on the table. With nettling rudeness the newcomers shoved past him and sat down. But there was no time to be sarcastic. Jane was already mounting the stairs. He ran after her.
    She was waiting outside. He took her arm.
    “Do people get on your nerves?” he asked, “so you can’t stand being with too many of these for too long?”
    She did not answer, but in the darkness her hand reached over and touched his.

CHAPTER VI
Don’t let on you know the secret, even to yourself. Pretend you don’t know that the people around you are dead, or as good as dead. That’s what you’ll do, brother, if you play it safe . . .
    THEY EMERGED from the alley into a street where the air had an intoxicating glow, as if the lamps puffed out clouds of luminous dust which rose for three or four stories into the dark.
    They passed a music store. Jane’s walk slowed to an indecisive drift. Through the open door Carr glimpsed a mahogany expanse of uprights, spinets, baby grands. Jane suddenly walked in. The sound of their footsteps died as they stepped onto the thick carpet.
    Whoever else was in the store was out of sight somewhere in the back. Jane sat down at one of the pianos. Her fingers quested for a while over the keys. Then her back stiffened, her head lifted, and there came the frantically rippling arpeggios of the third movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
    She didn’t play it any too well, yet she did manage to extract from it a feeling of wild, desperate wonder. Surely if the composer had ever meant this to be moonlight, it was moonlight illumining a white-pinnacled ocean storm or, through rifts in ragged clouds, the Brocken on Walpurgis Nacht.
    Suddenly it was over. In the echoing quiet Carr asked, “Is that more like it? The rhythm of life, I mean?” She made a little grimace as she got up. “Still too nice,” she said, “but there’s a hint.”
    They started out. Carr looked back over his shoulder, but the store was still empty. He felt a twinge of returning fear.
    “Do you realize that we haven’t spoken with anybody but each other tonight?” he asked.
    She smiled woefully. “I think of pretty dull things to do, don’t I?” she said, and when he started to protest, “No, I’m afraid you’d have had a lot more fun tonight with some other girl.”
    “Listen,” he said, “I did have a date with another girl and . . . oh, I don’t want to talk about it.”
    Her voice was