"Come on, with a name like Rupert Armstrong LeMoyne?” She opened the top two buttons of his shirt and slipped her hand inside. “Does Rupert Armstrong LeMoyne have a furry, warm chest?” She kissed the bridge of his nose, flattened when he'd boxed in college. “Does he have a manly and attractive schnozz? Does he have a square, sexy jaw straight out of Superman comics?” That too was kissed, and she looked into his eyes from three inches away, her eyes slightly crossed. “How am I doing? Is this cheering you up?” Her hand was still on his chest, the fingers moving in slow circles.

With his hands on her hips he shifted her, seating her more firmly on his lap, and then stroked her thigh through the twill of her National Park Service trousers. Had he really been sitting there, listless and dispirited, just a few minutes ago? “I don't know if cheering me up is exactly the way to put it,” he said, “but it's doing something. Why don't we forget about lunch and drop over to the house for an hour or two?"

"Tell me,” she persisted, “is Rupert Armstrong LeMoyne the author of the best-known book on comparative early hominid phylogeny?"

"The only book on comparative early hominid phylogeny."

"Don't quibble. Now,” she said, and kissed his nose again, this time on the tip, “did I or did I not just get a pretty good offer on how to pass the next two hours?"

"You bet. And then let's give some thought to going someplace for a few days where it's not raining."

The telephone rang as he began to rise with her still in his arms, and they both sank back into the chair. “This,” Gideon said confidently, “will be a very short call. You answer it. Tell them I'm on my way to an extremely important consultation."

"Is this the way your secretary answers the phone? From your lap?"