But he was also sweet, the sweetest dog Laura knew. Although she had been somewhat afraid of him at first, she had quickly come to rely upon his friendliness and warm personality. Rover often came over to her to lie down with his bushy head in her lap as she stroked her fingers around his large and steeply-pointed ears. He was an affectionate dog and she had never known him to bark or make the slightest untoward move to anyone, and yet to look at him you would think he was the most ferocious thing on two feet.

Laura sighed and went over to the telephone, her slender hand pausing momentarily on the receiver. Should she call Cleonora? She couldn't decide. Sometimes it even crossed her mind that she spent a little too much time at the Franklins. But Ralph didn't seem to mind. Indeed it seemed as if he welcomed the fact that she had found a few friends in Park Palisades. He knew very well that she was lonely during the long hours that he was away at work.

And what friends they were, too. Mark and Cleonora had the most magnificent house she had ever seen. Even though it was basically stone, it rose on stilts right out of the very cliffside of the irregular Pacific coastline. Its views were out of this world, and in the evening when the light had gone down, and Cleonora had opened the drapes on the west side of the huge, high-ceilinged and elegantly beamed living room, the house became so relaxing, like a warm womb into which one could retire for a restful doze.

Mark and Cleonora were beautiful people in the sense that they seemed to do everything with such dash and style. She had never known anyone quite like them. When they wanted to go somewhere they were as likely to rent a helicopter as take the ordinary modes of transportation. They kept two big Cadillacs as well as a Rolls-Royce with a built-in bar and a telephone. They never seemed to lack for anything. They were maximum consumers, and bought whatever they wanted whenever they pleased.