Whipple cut in. "Mr. Goodwin. You can joke about it, but I can't."

I met his eyes. "I wouldn't expect you to, Mr. Whipple. I was merely reacting to Mr. Wolfe's joke about me and attractive young women. But of course I'll have to meet her. He never leaves the house on business. How urgent is it? Have they set a date for the wedding?"

"No."

"How sure are you they're not already married?"

"I'm quite sure. My son wouldn't do that. He wouldn't dissemble with me-or with his mother."

"Is his mother with you on this?"

"Yes. Completely." He turned to Wolfe. "You said your remark about pride of race was pointless, but you had made the remark. With my wife I suppose it could be called that. Is it pride of race if she wants her son's wife to be a girl, a woman, with whom she can be friends? Real friends? Speaking as an American Negro, as a man, and as an anthropologist, can she expect to get true familial intimacy from a white woman?"

"No," Wolfe said. "Nor from a colored woman either if it's her son's wife." He waved it away. "However, you're fixed." He tilted his head to look at the wall clock: forty minutes till dinner. "Since Mr. Goodwin's suggestion isn't feasible, let's see if we can find one. Tell me all you know about Miss Brooke."

I got out my notebook.

It took only half an hour, so there were still ten minutes when I returned to the office after escorting Whipple to the front, helping him on with his coat, handing him his hat, and letting him out. Wolfe sat with his current book, closed, in his hands, gazing at it with his lips tight. He had been cheated out of a full hour of reading.

I stood and looked down at him. "If you expect an apology," I said, "you'll have to expect. When you make personal remarks about me with company present, I react."