“Who was on the phone, darling?”

“I don’t know.” Breton did not want to talk about the call.

“Wrong number?”

“Yes.”

Kate’s eyes searched his face. “But you were there so long. And I thought I heard you shouting.”

“Well,” Breton said impatiently, “let’s say it was the right number, but the wrong people.”

Gordon Palfrey snorted delightedly and the light of interest in Kate’s eyes dwindled away into disappointed coldness, as if Breton had switched off two minute television sets. That was another one for the nightly post mortem in the small hours, when all normal people were asleep and even the curtains of their rooms were breathing steadily in the night breezes. Why, he wondered guiltily, do I hurt Kate in the presence of her friends? But then, why does she hurt me all the time — showing her damned determined disinterest in the business, year in and year out, but giving me a public third degree about a stupid telephone call? He sat down heavily, let his right hand instinctively guide itself to his whiskey glass, and glanced around the room, practicing his benign smile on the Palfreys.

Gordon Palfrey was toying with the square of black velvet, figured with silver stars, which was always draped over his wife’s face during the sessions — but he still wanted to go on talking about Europe. He launched into a long account, undeterred by the theatrical flinches Breton gave each time he heard a statement like “The French have an excellent color sense.” His theme was that the decor of European cottages was invariably in better taste than the work of the best American decorators. Sinking back into the amber prison of boredom, Breton writhed in his armchair, wondering how he would survive the evening, knowing he should have been in the office helping Carl Tougher to straighten out the cement plant survey. With the effortless and imperceptible change of gear that is the mark of the born bore, Palfrey slid onto the subject of an old crofter they had met in Scotland who hand-wove tartans in spite of being totally blind, but Miriam had begun to get into her pre-trance restlessness.