At first Tremaine had thought it was a terrible idea, but as time passed he began to see some value in it. There were going to be some unsettling revelations in his book, and no doubt some-probably all-of these people were going to be upset. Better to deal with that before the book came out, rather than after. It might make for some unpleasant moments this week, but he could deal with that. He was no stranger to confrontation.

"Be glad to do what I can to help, though,” Pratt said around the stem of his pipe. Laconic he might be, but the man had a way of mumbling on. And on.

"Thank you.” Tremaine's crisp nod was meant to terminate the exchange.

"And whose idea was it to meet here, of all places?” Anna Henckel asked tartly. “Also yours, Melvin? To add a touch of sentiment?"

Anna was baiting him, of course. Aside from her sarcastic tone, she knew very well that he'd dropped the unfortunate “Melvin” when he'd begun to host “Voyages.” Well, she had been a mean-spirited woman twenty-some years ago. Had he really expected her to change? She certainly hadn't changed much physically. At sixty, she was as boxy, stone faced, and stern as ever; blankly impassive, magisterial, humorless, detached. Even that chopped-off, battleship-gray hair (a few decades ago it had been battleship dun) seemed like a self-righteous reprimand to his own carefully groomed white mane.

And yet hadn't there been a time, so long ago that it was hardly credible now, when he had seen her in a different light? When her now-guttural speech had been husky and soft, her thick body narrow-waisted and lush? When he had actually believed-briefly, to be sure-that the young and exotic Anna Henckel, with her camellia-petal skin, might be the woman he…With an imperceptible shake of his head he dismissed the repellent thought. Well, at least he had made it through that demented phase without blurting out some mortifying amatory declaration to her.