“We’ll get an annulment.”

  “But how can you if they…if she…”

  For a long moment, he looked out across the sea of cheering Tharks. He felt the power rising in him. He glanced up at the balcony where Thuvia stood, wearing the helium crown of the old empire. She waved to him. He saluted her with the Winchester rifle his father had given him for Christmas.

  “I knew we should have gone to Watch Hill in June. It’s all your fault, Blaise, for keeping us here because of your dreary politics. Well, now she’s gone and done it. She’s married one. A politician. You should be very pleased.”

  There was a sound of glass breaking. Peter tried to incorporate it into the fantasy, but failed. Sadly he allowed the vision of Thuvia and the Tharks to break into bits, along with the highball glass that his father had apparently thrown at either his mother or the floor. He looked through the open French window. Between his father and mother lay a broken glass, its contents staining the rug.

  “Look what you’ve done to the carpet.”

  “To hell with the carpet.”

  “To hell with everything. That’s really what you’d like.” This was unexpected. Frederika usually stayed to the periphery of a scene. Direct statements of any sort were not her style.

  “What do you suggest I do?” Blaise challenged her directly.

  “Pour some water on the rug. It will dilute the stain.”

  “And after I’ve done that?”

  “Oh, whatever you like.” Her positive moment was gone. “But try to be pleasant while they’re here.”

  “I ought to have him arrested for seducing a minor.”

  “She’s not a minor, in Maryland, and he didn’t seduce her, he married her.”

  Peter sat back in the deck chair, shutting out the voices with an effort of will. The day was hot. He was dressed for tennis but at the last moment he had rung his friend Scotty and told him that if they played there was danger of sunstroke. Everyone said so. Besides, he was mortally tired, too tired even to move from the fiery terrace to the pool where there was shade.

  Enid had married Clay in Maryland, early that morning. She had telephoned to break the news while the family was at breakfast. Everyone behaved character​istically. Frederika had wanted to know where they had spent the night (in the car). Blaise had said that he wanted never to see either of them again, to which Enid had answered: “Don’t be silly, we’ll be home for lunch.” Peter had decided that considering what had happened in the poolhouse, marriage was a dull ending to a splendid event. He had by now played back the film of what he had seen so many times that it was almost as if he had been a participant. But unimaginative or not, his sister’s marriage was at least a break in the usual round of the family’s life. For that he was grateful.

  “Anyway, it’s all your fault,” Frederika repeated her single argument. “If we’d only gone to Watch Hill, instead of…”

  “…of staying here, Clay and I would never have been married. That’s absolutely true.” Enid was in the room, wearing a crumpled silver evening dress and silver shoes. She hobbled toward them. “I lost a heel in Elkton. It snapped right off on the steps of the house where the Justice of the Peace lives. Clay’s outside, in the car. I said I’d come in first and see how things are. I see how they are.” She made a face. “Father, why do you feel you have to make a scene?”

  “I haven’t said a word since you arrived.” Blaise’s voice was startlingly agreeable.

  “But on the telephone you were awfully loud. And now, your face! Mother, what are we going to do with him?”

  “You slept in the car?” Arrangements always intrigued Frederika.

  “We sat up in the car. We haven’t been to sleep at all. I better get out of this dress and change my shoes.”

  “No,” said Blaise. Then he noticed Peter in the window. “Go away!” He shouted like a farmer to a bird that has suddenly landed on a new-sown field. Peter went away. He walked around the house, ducking through the thick boxwood until he came to the main driveway where Clay sat in his Plymouth coupé, reading the Tribune.

  “Congratulations, I guess.” Peter shook Clay’s hand, noticing that the hand was sweaty and that a day-old beard somewhat blurred the classic chin. Yet despite eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep, Clay was as handsome as ever.

  “It was sudden,” said Clay. “What’s going on in there?”

  “It was sudden here, too.”

  “How’s your father taking it?”

  “Upset. Why?”

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  Peter shook his head. “Maybe he wanted her to marry…I don’t know, someone else.”

  “Someone rich?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know. He can be peculiar.”

  “Well, it’s done.”

  Enid came limping out the front door. “Clay, come on in. Oh, it’s you,” she said irrelevantly to Peter. “Enjoying all the fuss?”

  “Not as much as you.”

  Enid ignored this. She turned to Clay. “He wants to talk to you.” Clay got out of the car.

  “Good luck,” said Peter.

  Enid started back to the house, stumbled and almost fell. Angrily she took off both shoes and flung them into the boxwood. “Come on,” she said to Clay. “Let’s see if you can handle him.”

  V

  Handling Blaise was not an easy task, if only because it was impossible to know precisely what was being handled. Blaise greeted Clay politely, and offered him a drink. Then, since the first of the lunch guests were not due for an hour, he proposed that they go to the pool for a swim. Frederika and Enid were as baffled as Clay by this particular tactic.

  At the door to the poolhouse, Clay had a moment’s guilt. But Blaise took his arm cheerfully. “I guess you’ve been here quite a few times this summer.”

  Clay wondered if Peter had indeed told his father. But if Blaise knew anything, he was too intent on being amiable to mention it now.

  “You probably know which suit will fit you.” On a hat rack a dozen men’s bathing suits hung. Clay took one. Blaise another. Then, still chatting lightly, both men undressed.

  “Do you know Senator Barkley well?”

  “Fairly well, yes, sir.”

  “I was for Pat Harrison myself to be the majority leader. But we must let Franklin win an occasional battle.”

  “Senator Day likes Mr. Barkley but he thinks he’s weak.”

  “Rubber stamp for the President?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Clay removed his shorts, he was aware of the other’s sharp eyes studying him. His face was suddenly hot, as though he were blushing; perhaps he was. He turned away as he put on the suit, recalling as sensible the Bible’s injunction against beholding the father’s nakedness. Not only was it unnerving to see where one had come from, it was depressing to look at the body of any man past his prime and observe one’s own future in the ruin.

  As Clay tied the strings of the bathing suit, he glanced in a mirror and saw that Blaise was staring at him with a look of such extraordinary hatred that he could actually feel it, like a branding iron suddenly slammed between the shoulder blades. But when Blaise spoke, the voice was pleasant “Bring your drink outside. We’ll sit in the shade. Not that it does much good this time of year. All your fault, you know.”

  “My fault?” Now it begins. Clay stiffened, ready for the assault.

  Blaise smiled. “Congress’s fault, for staying in session through July.”

  “The President’s fault, for trying to force the Court bill down our throats.”

  Blaise nodded; he led Clay to the deck chairs beside the pool.

  “And killing poor Joe Robinson in the process. I wonder if it’s true what they say, that old Joe would have been appointed to the Court, if he could get the bill through the Senate.”

  Clay was pleased to be on familiar ground. “I don’t know, sir. There’s a theory that the President was just using him and that as soon as the bill had passed, he’d appoint four new Justices like, well, Hutchins in Chicago, you know, left-wingers, bomb-throwers.”

  “You one?” Blaise turned toward Clay, who promptly felt guilt, though innocent.

  “I work for Senator Day.”

  “Not an answer.”

  “Well, I’m a conservative, on my own time, too. For one thing, I don’t accept Keynesian economics.”

  “Atrocious fellow. I’ve met him. La-de-dah. Probably a pansy. But he’s got the whole Administration under his thumb. Except for Harry Hopkins. He’s defected now. Wants to be President, silly ass. But you can’t be President and traffic with parlor pinks and socialists. Poor Harry thinks 1940 is his year. Just like Burden.”

  “I think the Senator’s going to make it”

  “Maybe.” Blaise stretched his short blunt legs; blue varicose veins coiled round the calves. “What will you do for money?”

  “We have a good deal of support in the West. Some of the oil people…”

  “I meant you. And Enid.”

  Clay felt stupid; he had missed a point. “My salary’s enough for two.”

  “For Enid?”

  “Why not?”

  “You expect me to finance you. Why should I?”

  “Why shouldn’t you?”

  Blaise gave him a sharp look. “Well, that’s a fair question. I disapprove of this marriage because Enid’s too young. She should see more of the world than just Washington. Get to know more people.”

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “No money.”

  “But I will have some. And there’s enough for now.”

  “What sort of future do you see for yourself?”

  “Excellent.”

  “In what?”

  “Politics.”

  “You don’t make money in politics, you spend it.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Neither am I. Look here, if I paid you—oh, a hundred thousand dollars—would you let us annul the marriage?”

  Clay laughed, in spite of himself. “I never realized people actually said things like that. No.”

  “You love Enid and you can’t live without her?” Blaise mocked him.

  Clay looked at him with a loathing that must have been perfectly apparent, for Blaise suddenly sat back straight in the deck chair, re-crossing stubby legs. “I said nothing about love, Mr. Sanford. But since you enjoy spelling things out, I should tell you that I don’t intend to have an annulment in my past for political enemies to make something of.” Clay grinned at the older man, in a way which he knew was winning, at least under the proper circumstances. “You’ll have to think of something else…sir.”

  Blaise was silent. He sipped his drink. He studied a rotten tree stump which had been converted by ants into a vast and intricate city. “I dislike being had.” The colloquialism was odd on Blaise’s lips. “I know what you are. Poor boy from the provinces who comes to the capital to make his fortune. Then marries a rich girl and lives happily ever after, on her money. Only, she’s not happy. Well, I swore it would never happen to Enid.”

  “What did you want for her?”

  “Someone like me.”

  “With money?”

  “With family.”

  “You are a snob, sir.”

  “I have never denied it. And let me tell you, this city is Calvary for the snob, for anyone with values, having to put up with all these clowns and medicine men who’ve tricked the people into voting for them…”

  “Not all are clowns.”

  “The ones who are not are even worse. They want power for its own sake. Like Franklin.”

  “Like you.”

  “I am here because it amuses me to stir things up.” He looked at the tree stump. “I suppose you’ve already gone to bed with her. Is she pregnant?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  Blaise sprang to his feet and in one swift movement crossed the brick terrace and dived into the pool. Clay followed, more slowly, aware that his sides were streaked with nervous sweat. He did a jackknife from the diving board, straightening out sharply just before he hit the water, eyes open to the cool green blur which, he knew, automatically slows the beating of the heart. He swam the length of the pool underwater. Reluctantly, he came to the surface, to find Blaise sitting on the edge of the pool, watching him.

  “I was on the Yale swimming team.” Blaise paid him back for the showy display on the diving board.

  “I was never on any team. I had to work my way through school. I stoked furnaces.”

  “Bully for you.”

  “I wasn’t boasting.”

  “I was. Enid is a…generous girl. I don’t know why she married you but it was probably because she wants to give you something she thinks you need, like money.”

  “I need it, but not that badly.”

  “You won’t get it.”

  Clay wondered what would happen if he were to strike his father-in-law. It would be a satisfying thing to do. Subsequent relations, though cool, would at least be honest. But he controlled his temper. He stretched his arms; flexed muscles instead. “You’ve still not given one good reason why you’re so much against my marrying Enid.”

  “I’m against it because, damn it, I don’t want to make it easy for you.”

  “Make what easy?”

  “Everything. The game you’re up to. You mean to rise and I don’t want you to.”

  “Why not?”

  But Blaise did not answer. He got to his feet and went back to the poolhouse. Clay called after him: “Is it because you didn’t rise? Because you couldn’t?” Clay was bold. “Because you were too rich to fight like the other boys?” But Blaise had disappeared into the changing room.

  Clay waited until he was certain that the other was dressed. Then he returned to the poolhouse. Blaise was combing his thin hair. He ignored Clay, who dressed quickly. As they were about to leave, Blaise turned to him. “I acquired power on my own.”

  “You had money to start with.”

  “How I got power is immaterial. What matters is that I have it and you want it.”

  “Not your sort, no.”

  “All sorts are the same, as you’ll discover. Well, it’s not going to be easy, is it?” He was genial. “Now for lunch, and the spreading of good news.” He smiled. “Senator Day is joining us. And I told him to bring Diana. I thought you’d like that.” As Blaise led Clay between the rows of boxwood, he took his arm with a show of affection that would have impressed a bystander.

  VI

  “I told you, I have all sorts of friends.” Mr. Nillson beamed at Burden.

  “So I see.” For the moment he was trapped on the terrace with his tempter. At the edge of the lawn, under an elm, Clay and Diana faced one another. She was pale and silent. He was vehement in whatever it was he was saying.

  Lunch had been a disaster. Clay had tried once or twice to warn them of what had happened but Blaise saw to it that he was never given the opportunity. The announcement, when it came over dessert, was altogether shocking. Burden had got up quite involuntarily, wanting to go to Diana who sat across the table from him. But if she needed comforting, she did not show it. Once on his feet, Burden had no choice but to go to Clay and congratulate him. By then everyone was up from table.

  In the drawing room, Blaise played his favorite role of toastmaster. The speech: “I won’t say I wasn’t surprised. I was. We all were. But that’s the way people do things nowadays. Actually, we should all be grateful. Because now no one has to buy them a thing. No silver. No presents. No nothing.” There was laughter at this. Enid, Burden noticed, looked tired and grim. Clay was tense. Only Blaise appeared oblivious to everything except his own enjoyment of the situation. He wished the young couple a long and happy marriage. Toasts were solemnly drunk. Then the party moved outdoors onto the terrace.

  “As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I’m here is to talk to Blaise about you.”

  “That’s kind of you.” Burden had wanted to leave right after lunch, but Diana must be allowed her talk with Clay, leaving him at Mr. Nillson’s mercy.

  “We’re about to start a Day for President campaign.”

  Burden stared at Mr. Nillson with that look of amused disbelief which witnesses before Senate committees invariably found alarming. But apparently nothing alarmed Mr. Nillson.

  “We will probably set up our first organization in Washington. With a few celebrated names on the stationery, like Blaise. Not me, don’t worry. I shall be entirely in the background, as always—the unofficial treasurer.” He emphasized the last word with a little grin. “With two hundred and fifty thousand in the kitty, your campaign would be nicely launched. Of course that’s only a beginning.”

  Diana had turned from Clay. He seemed not to have finished what he was about to tell her. He reached out a hand as though to draw her back but she was walking swiftly across the lawn to the terrace. Blaise’s son stopped her on the steps and said something; she tried to smile. Burden saw the pain and excused himself. He crossed to Diana and the boy. “Shall we go?” he asked.

  “I think so, yes. Where’s Enid?”

  Peter shrugged. “Gone to bed, I expect. They were up all night.”

  “Tell her how…glad I am.”

  “I will.”

  Burden took Diana’s arm protectively. He was surprised to find himself enjoying the situation. “Father Comforts Jilted Daughter.” Life often seemed to him like a series of old prints with such titles as “Statesman at Bay.” “A Death in the Family.” “Honor Betrayed.” It was difficult at best to feel anything about others. But he tried, for he truly believed that one ought to be good. In any case, no one could fault him for not making the effort. Unfortunately, though he loved his daughter, he liked Clay, and that made things difficult, particularly now when Clay, breathing hard, stepped between them and the door to the drawing room. He had run the length of the terrace.