For instance, the strangely amused reference to the fact that he no longer called himself Jack. Breton had begun using the formal version of his name for image reasons at the time his business began to develop, but that had been years ago and — he felt a surge of indignation — it was nobody’s concern but his own. All the same, some stubborn corner of his mind had never approved of the name change, and it was almost as if the unknown caller had been able to see right through him and pinpoint the tiny shadow that was his tumor of guilt.

Breton paused at the living room door, realizing he was reacting just the way the phone crank would have wanted — turning the thing over and over in his mind instead of dismissing it. He glanced around the orange-lit paneling of the hall, suddenly wishing he had moved to a bigger and newer place last year as Kate had wanted. He had outgrown this old house, and should have discarded it without sentiment long ago. You have been living with my wife for almost exactly nine years. Breton frowned as he remembered the words — the caller had not been implying he had an earlier marriage to Kate, or anything like that, because she and Breton were married eleven years. But that figure of nine years seemed to mean something, to have multi-layered connections of anxiety, as though some part of his subconscious had drunk in its significance and was waiting apprehensively for the next move.

“For God’s sake!” Breton spoke aloud and smacked his forehead in self-disgust. “I’m nearly as crazy as he is.”

He opened the door and went into the living room. In his absence Kate had dimmed the lights and moved a coffee table over beside Miriam Palfrey. A block of plain white paper and a pen were ready on the table, and Miriam’s stubby, grub-like fingers were already making vague little floating movements over them. Breton groaned silently — so they were going to have a session after all. The Palfreys were newly back from a three-month tour of Europe and all evening bad been so full of the trip that he had begun to think there would be no demonstration. The hope had given him the strength to listen politely to their tourist talk.