She put her hand against his face. “You really are a lovely man, Walter. But this is one time I don’t think I do understand you.”

“Something’s going on,” he said slowly. “I’ve probably given you a biased picture of our distinguished president. Hallam has never had any real existence for me outside of his role in the firm, but I learned long ago never to underestimate him. I told him I was considering an offer from one of our competitors-”

She broke in. “When?”

“Yesterday. If I hadn’t known him so well, I would have thought he showed emotion. We’ve been at exactly opposite poles on every decision, every attitude, every course of action. I would have said he’d be delighted to be shut of me. But on the contrary. I haven’t definitely said I’d stay, but if I do I’ll have ten thousand dollars more a year, complete autonomy, a big increase in the design budget, veto power over a broad range of policy, six months out of every eighteen in Europe-”

“Walter, that’s marvelous!”

“I agree. But unless I’ve been dead wrong about Forbes Hallam all these years, something’s behind it. He wants me on the scene, but why?”

He moved his wine glass so it caught the light. “And I’m wondering, in a perverse way, if he’s been told that I’ve been seeing you.”

“Would that be so ghastly?”

“Darling, of course not. Unless by some odd chance he connects it with the flap we’ve been having about a certain new nonpeelable paint known to our advertising department as T-239.”

Neither spoke for a moment. Langhorne tasted his cold soup and added a few grains of pepper from a pepper mill.