Peter glanced at the stout President above the fireplace and wondered what he would have thought of this new American empire so unlike the old Republic whose jovial steward he had been. The change in the country, as reflected by the city, had been so sudden that Peter was not surprised that so few people seemed to notice it. Overnight everyone took it for granted that without design and by God’s election, the American Empire existed to rule the world. Not as if we wanted the world, the magnates grumbled, as they seized bases and trade routes, but who else can stop the Nazis and the Japs? Who else can keep the peace, through war?

  “I must say, this war is terrible!” Lucy sounded as if she had given the matter more than usual thought. “I was with Millicent in Maryland last weekend. She has the most beautiful place there,” Lucy explained to the actor who said yes, he knew. “And that Mrs. Osborne came over for the afternoon, you know the one who is always trying to preserve old Georgetown?” Peter said yes, he knew. “She wanted Millicent to join some committee or other, so while we were discussing the ins and outs of the matter, it was that very warm day…Sunday, like spring…and we were sitting outside, down by that awful pond of Millicent’s which is so full of weeds that I call it the gumbo. Anyway, the outside telephone rang and Millicent answered it and the call was for Mrs. Osborne who took it. Well, she hadn’t listened for two minutes when she stepped back from the phone, got her foot tangled in the extension cord, and fell head over heels into the pond. Luckily, Millicent is strong as an ox and she pulled her out. So there the poor thing was, soaked to the skin, teeth chattering from shock, and plastered with leaves, and she told us how her son, that nice tall boy Scotty—”

  The hand that held the chocolate leaf shut into an icy fist “Was dead,” Peter sounded the words in his head an instant before Lucy Shattuck said, “—was killed, shot in the head at Saipan. He was a Marine.”

  Lucy continued to talk but Peter no longer listened. He shut his eyes, tried to evoke Scotty, got a black-and-white negative, tried again, got a blurred likeness of Scotty roller-skating at fourteen, wearing corduroy knickers; tried once more and got full color. Each was thirteen. They were in a bathroom at Laurel House. Peter had no practical knowledge of sex. Scotty volunteered instruction. Both lay down on the cold tile floor. Half his life later, Peter could still feel the grip of that callused athlete’s hand.

  As Scotty went about his work, he described how the previous summer he had seduced a girl of seventeen, a great victory. At the time Peter did not believe him (later he discovered that Scotty never lied). But true or false, the story made him envious, for that day on the bathroom floor he was convinced that he would never be able to have a girl, or even himself. Only in dreams was he potent.

  “It isn’t going to work,” he said at last, but Scotty merely grinned, black hair falling over his forehead as he methodically continued. Suddenly, feeling odd, Peter tried to pull away. “That’s enough,” he said. But Scotty would not let him go. Then, with a sense of being torn apart, Peter felt his life go. “Jesus!” He struck away the other’s hand. Scotty shouted with laughter. Like a meteor drawn into a planet’s orbit, Peter fell toward Scotty and with a gasp crashed against the smooth long body and died, to be reborn minutes later when Scotty pushed him away, eyes glittering with delight “Well, that’s how you do it. But next time not all over me.”

  The look in Scotty’s eyes at that moment was the only thing he could recall, as the voice of Lady Shattuck continued, far away, like a bad telephone connection.

  “Come on,” said Diana, taking his arm. “Excuse me, Mrs. Shattuck.” She pulled him away from the fatal messenger.

  “Come on where?” he asked, wondering how he could still speak. He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror and saw with disgust that he looked the same as ever: nothing revealed the inner pain, except the melting pastry in his hand. But the pain was real enough; it was simply that his response was inadequate. He could not rise to tragedy or sink to grief. Instead, newsreels played through his head. Marines hit the beach. Movie dialogue boomed in his ears. “But he’s only a kid, Captain! You can’t send him out on that patrol!” When he tried to visualize the moment of Scotty’s death, he was rewarded with a still photograph of Scotty pitching a baseball beneath palm trees, while a nearby jukebox played “All the Things You Are,” rendered in Scotty’s own flat never-to-be-heard-again bass.

  “Mr. Carhart’s ready. He’s in the study.”

  “Ready for what?” Peter wanted not to go on, to stop where he was. It’s been quite enough, thank you. And then he would pitch to the floor, a bullet between his eyes.

  “Here’s the mockup.” Diana gave him the dummy issue of The American Idea. “Now go on. In there.” She pushed him toward the door.

  Mr. Carhart was standing at his desk on which had been arranged a series of charts containing thousands of little boxes, some blank and some written in. “Genealogy,” he said amiably. “I’ve traced the Carharts back to Robert the Bruce, in two lines.”

  “That must be interesting, sir.” Peter held The American Idea stiffly in one hand. In the other melted chocolate threatened to drip onto the Turkey-red carpet. To his disgust he realized that he was now dramatizing not the death of Scotty but his own grief.

  Fortunately Mr. Carhart’s reputation as a bore was not exaggerated. Not only did he, like the greatest bores, have a series of set numbers, not anecdotes so much as annals, but he could also be spontaneously dull. He was exactly what Peter needed.

  “I’m all right, as you can see, through the nineteenth and most of the eighteenth century, a few holes here and there, of course, but the Carhart line is clear. Then in the seventeenth century we have a few little problems.” He frowned: large problems obviously. “There is a connection with Sir Thomas Browne which is quite exciting but depends entirely upon this lady here.” He poked one of the little boxes. “Who was her first husband? And are we kin to her children by him or to those by the second husband?”

  While this question was being threshed out, Peter looked for some place to deposit the chocolate, a risky business since Mr. Carhart, not wanting the attention of his victim to stray, was apt to pivot about and fix with a cold stare the listener who had dared fidget or yawn even with mouth shut.

  But at last the set piece ended, and Peter gave Mr. Carhart the issue of The American Idea, and made him a speech.

  Mr. Carhart appeared impressed. “We could do with something like that. As my friend Henry Adams used to say, ‘Washington is a cultural desert.’ I used to wonder why he stayed. It must have been torture for him, living opposite the White House and knowing that he would never live there, unlike his grandfather and great-grandfather, who did of course live there.” Trust Mr. Carhart to explain that. Peter was becoming restive: a sign that he was responding to the Carhart treatment. He was being bored to life again.

  “ ‘Let’s be vulgar and ask the President,’ Henry Adams used to say, which always made Millicent furious since of course her uncle was the President.” It was Aeneas Duncan who had pointed out to Peter that like the medieval Roman nobility, each of Washington’s important families was based upon a single important man. In Rome he was a Pope, in Washington a President or notorious legislator. And long after this celebrity was quite forgotten, he continued to be worshiped at the home altar, for he was sole source of the family’s honor and root to their pretensions. Millicent always referred to her uncle as The President, as though there had not been thirty others.

  “I don’t,” said Mr. Carhart finally, after a long reminiscence of an afternoon with Henry Adams in which, it developed, nothing was said that in some way did not touch upon the Carhart genealogy, “invest in this sort of thing. But,” the small dull eyes almost twinkled behind gold-rimmed pince-nez, “I’ll take the first subscription.”

  Fuck you, thought Peter, scraping his left hand under the chair, vengefully dislodging the chocolate, not caring if Mr. Carhart saw or not. But his crime went unnoticed. For just then Millicent put her head in the door. “Come on you two, do your stuff. Peter, your sister’s here.”

  Joe Bailey pounded Peter heartily. “How’s a boy?” He explained in his rich voice while Enid said, “You’re fat again! And what’s that on your hand?” She saw everything. “Chocolate! The way you eat.” She produced Kleenex; gratefully he took it and cleaned himself.

  “What’re you doing here?” each asked the other at the same time. Both laughed, acknowledging if nothing else their likeness of response. Peter said business with Mr. Carhart. Enid said Joe wanted to meet Washington society. “Though God knows why! Let’s face it, Millicent’s the dullest woman alive, and tea is all we’ll get!”

  As always, people were drawn to Enid and Peter let her go. She had been drinking but she was steady on her feet and she spoke distinctly. Nevertheless, Joe Bailey held onto her, as if he feared she might fall.

  “Who’s the girl?” Aeneas was beside Peter.

  “My sister.”

  “That was a lousy thing to do, stringing me on like that.”

  “I wanted you to love me for myself.”

  To save honor, Aeneas took the negative line. “About as worthless a group of people as I’ve ever seen. Stalin was right: the undesirable classes do not liquidate themselves.”

  “But what about the conversation? This is a salon, after all.” As Peter teased, he was conscious of an obscure distress, something to do with Scotty, other than the fact of death.

  Aeneas bitterly denounced the golden world he had been so eager to reveal, and, wanting to keep his friendship, Peter agreed with him until Diana joined them, anxious for news. Peter was blunt. “Nothing doing. He won’t give a penny.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Why don’t you use your money, the Sanford millions?” Aeneas took heavy revenge.

  “I don’t have the millions. They’re my father’s and I don’t think this is quite his sort of thing. But,” he turned full face to Diana, “I’ll see that it gets published. That’s a promise.”

  Diana looked at him with some curiosity. “Do you really mean that?”

  Peter meant it. The time of drifting was at an end. The years in school and in the Army were all so much time forever wasted. Now he must put a stop to the drift by doing something that was not only worth doing for itself but would please Diana, particularly now that she had fallen out with Billy. But he put the ignoble secondary motive out of his head. He would do this thing for its own sake, like Scotty, who had died doing something which, in the moment’s frame at least, was meaningful. But that was maudlin, he told himself severely, and not true. To die for any thing was just as bad as to die for nothing. He had meant to survive the war and he had survived. Now he must pay the price for this sensible caution and use his life properly. On the verge of self-congratulation, he reminded himself that he was not noble. He did only what he wanted to do, and no more. He turned to Diana. “Come on, let’s go.” He surprised himself more than he did her.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll get my coat. I’ll meet you in the hall.”

  “I know her husband. He’s not the easiest man to deal with.” Aeneas looked at him shrewdly.

  “Luckily, I don’t have to deal with him.” Peter said good night to Aeneas, keeping the lines of friendship intact if frayed.

  As Peter crossed to say goodbye to his hostess, he heard Enid say to Irene Bloch, “Really, I’d love to come see your new house. I hear everybody goes there now. I never did understand why they were all so down on you for so long.” Irene Bloch went, if possible, whiter than usual, a drift of snow beneath Enid’s cruel sun.

  “Oh, yes.” Irene was bright. “Oh, yes,” she repeated, somewhat desperately, hoping for a change in the weather, which Peter provided.

  “Hello, Mrs. Bloch.”

  “Ah, Pierre!” She turned to him, took both his hands in hers and would not let him go. “You must come, too. A little party. Un petit cocktail.” Wanting her to win, Peter could not help wincing at being called Pierre. Enid winked at him, pleased with herself. The little cocktail was for a Middle European foreign minister, exiled by Germans. Wanting to make up for Enid, Peter said that he would be happy to come. He tried to undo Mrs. Bloch’s hands but she clung to him, fearing Enid. She talked quickly, filling every silence in order to keep Enid at bay.

  “We don’t see enough of you,” she said gaily, and Peter wondered who was “we.” He barely knew her and only horror at his sister’s behavior made him suddenly an ally. “But I know how busy you young men are with this awful war! You do all the work, too, I’m sure, for you never go out and the generals are out to dinner every night.”

  “That’s lucky because…” Enid’s fangs were bared to draw snow water.

  But Peter deflected her. “I do nothing at all, Mrs. Bloch. I wish I did.” The idea came to him. “I’m about to publish a magazine. Why don’t you invest?”

  “But I should love to!” Reminded of the merchant prince’s wealth, she was herself again. She let go Peter’s hands. She even indulged in a second thought “I mean if I approve of it, naturally!” With a small laugh, she avoided commitment.

  “Oh, you’ll approve!”

  “I’m sure she will,” said Enid. “After all, it’s social, isn’t it? A magazine like Town and Country?”

  But her victim was already on the wing. Over her shoulder she said to Peter, “Come and see me. Almost any afternoon.” She was gone.

  Peter turned to Enid. “You are awful,” he said, which made Enid laugh until her eyes filled with tears.

  Joe Bailey materialized. “How’s my girl?” He struck a deep note on the rich organ of his voice.

  “Oh, your girl is just fine but she could do with a drink. I can’t take much more of this old maid’s tea party. Peter’s found a new friend, one of the chosen people, Irene Bloch!” Enid’s voice filled the room. At the fireplace Lucy Shattuck gave them a knowing smile.

  Suddenly Peter was aware that his head was aching and that if he did not soon release some portion of his grief and rage he would burst. He turned on Joe. “How is the revolution coming?”

  “Revolution?” Joe Bailey looked at him blankly.

  “The take-over of the White House, the elimination of the Commies, the return to a cleaner, simpler, more godly America, dedicated to the small rural farm, baseball and slavery?”

  “Don’t get smart-aleck, mister!”

  Enid started to say something but for once decided not to. His inner pressure somewhat lessened, Peter said good night to Millicent and joined Diana in the hall. In the taxicab, without consulting Diana, he gave the driver his own address.

  Not until after Diana had left at midnight did he recall what it was that had been troubling him all evening. The year before, when Scotty was home on leave, they had got into a pointless quarrel about a girl each knew. As a result they had parted coldly, in a Hot Shoppe drive-in where Peter had eaten two hamburgers and two orders of French fried potatoes. Pride had kept them apart for the rest of Scotty’s leave. Now Scotty was dead and Peter realized that never once in all the years they had known each other had he told Scotty that he liked him. Lying among tangled sheets that smelled of Diana, Peter scowled, gritted his teeth, vowed he would not make that mistake again.

  II

  From far away, Burden heard his own amplified voice fill the room. He was making a speech to an audience which laughed at every joke. It was exactly his sort of group: prosperous farmers come to Washington for an annual lunch, held this year in the new Statler Hotel with himself as guest speaker. He told an old joke: loud laughter. He cast down his eyes, simulating modesty while trying to read the notes he had made on the menu. As the laughter continued, he took a quick sip of coffee and noticed that his slab of ice cream had not been taken away. It was now liquid. Disgusting.

  Suddenly the laughter stopped. Burden tried to start again but all that he could think of was melted ice cream. He had gone blank. For an instant he did not know where he was or what he was doing in front of so many strangers. He had literally lost himself, as he had done from time to time in public over the years. Fortunately, his moments of aphasia were brief and seldom noticed.

  Desperately Burden reached for the menu; read “Boeuf à la Washington.” That was no help. Panic increased; the audience was watching him curiously, wondering why he did not go on. He looked at the back of the menu, saw several scribbled words. One was “Luzon.” He was saved. With MacArthur’s recent landing on Luzon, the reconquest of the Philippines had begun. Restored in time, he made the eagle, if not scream, at least discreetly flap its wings, for flag-waving was out of fashion, which suited his temperament rather more than it had that of his opponent in the recent primary, a passionate New Dealer whose campaigning had been full of the “Remember Pearl Harbor!” sort of thing.

  Burden had chosen quite a different tack. Low-keyed and sweetly reasonable, he had reminded the voters that in the thirty years he had been their Senator, the state had grown prosperous. But where another politician might have labored that essential point, Burden simply made it and moved on to describe how, during his lifetime, the United States had become a world power and (echoing Pericles) he told them what a marvelous yet dangerous thing it was to be great. To his surprise, this part of the speech invariably struck the collective nerve. As he came to it, he could see people lean forward, eyes suddenly wide, wanting to hear every word. At such moments, he knew a pleasure which made altogether bearable the harrowing process of election.

  Burden had not planned to mention the danger of world power to the farmers, but since they had reacted so well to his tribute to MacArthur, he decided to continue. But he had not got two sentences into Power when he realized that he had spoken too long. He should have quit with Luzon. Drastically, he shortened Power; sadly, too, for he was grateful to it Power had been particularly effective against his Republican opponent, a businessman of crude imperialist tendencies with twice Burden’s financial backing. Though it was a close race, Power had finally defeated money. Burden had been so poorly financed that in the last weeks of the campaign he had been unable to pay for billboards or for radio. He had hardly been able to buy those useless but necessary advertisements in the weekly newspapers. Useless in the sense that they changed no votes; necessary because the editor invariably supported the candidate who bought the most advertising.