"With the _Law_ton girl, I suppose," she said without affection. Then, accepting a cigarette and holding it before lighting it, "I do wish you _wouldn't_ see quite so much of her. I'll ad_mit_ she's a perfectly nice girl, of course. But she _is_ strange and people are be_gin_ning to talk. I hope you're not going to be _fool_ish about her." "Don't worry," Coulter replied. Since when, he wondered, had wanting a girl as he wanted Eve Lawton been foolish. He added, "What's wrong with Eve anyway?" His mother lit a cigarette. "Lamb, it's not that there's anything _real_ly wrong with Eve. As a matter of fact I be_lieve_ her family is quite distinguished--good old _Linc_olnville stock." "I'm aware of that," he replied drily. "I believe her great, great, great grandfather was a brigadier while mine was only a colonel in the Revolution." His mother dismissed the distant past with a gesture. "But the Lawtons haven't _man_aged to keep up," she stated. "Think of your schooling, dear--you've had the _ve_ry best. While Eve ..." With a shrug. "Went to grammar and high-school right here in Lincolnville," Coulter finished for her. "Mother, Eve has more brains and character than any of the debs I know." Then, collecting himself, "But don't worry, mother--I'm not going to let it upset my life." "I'm _ve_ry glad to hear it," Mrs. Coulter said simply. "Re_mem_ber, Banny, you and your Eve are a world apart. Besides, we're going to take a trip a_broad_ this summer. There's _so_ much I want us to see to_gether_. It would be a shame to ..." She let it hang. Coulter looked at his mother, remembering hard. He had been able to stymie that trip on the excuse that he'd almost certainly lose his job and that new jobs were too hard to get in a depression era. He thought that his surviving parent was, beneath her well-mannered surface, a shallow, domineering, snobbish empress. Granted his new vista of vision, he realized for the first time how she had dominated both his father and himself. * * * * * He thought, _I hate this woman. No, not hate, just loathe._ He glanced at the watch on his wrist, a Waltham he had long since lost or broken or given away--he couldn't recall which. He said, "All the same, mother, a date's a date. I'm a little late now. Don't wait up for me." "I shan't," she replied, looking after him with a frown of pale concern as he headed for the hall closet. It took a few minutes to get the Pontiac warmed up but once out of the driveway Coulter knew the way to Eve Lawton's house as if he had been there last night, not two decades earlier. The small cold winter moon cast its frigid light over an intimate little group of apple tapioca clouds and made the snow-clad fields a dark grey beneath the black evergreens that backed the fields beside the road.