Iris and I sat silently before the last red embers on the hearth. I sensed that something had gone wrong but I could not tell then what it was. When she spoke, her manner was abrupt: “Do you really want to go on with this?” “What an odd time to ask me that. Of course I do. Tonight’s the first time I really saw what it was Cave meant, what it was I’d always felt but never before known, consciously, that is. I couldn’t be more enthusiastic.” “I hope you don’t change.” “Why so glum? What are you trying to say? After all you got me into this.” “I know I did and I think I was right. It’s only that this evening I felt ... well, I don’t know. Perhaps I’m getting a bit on edge.” She smiled and, through all the youth and health, I saw that she was anxious and ill-at-ease. “That business about the accident?” “Mainly, yes. The lawyers say that now that the old man’s all right he’ll try to collect damages. He’ll sue Cave.” “Nasty publicity.” “The worst. It’s upset John terribly ... he almost feels it’s an omen.” “I thought we were dispensing with all that, with miracles and omens.” I smiled but she did not. “Speak for yourself.” She got up and pushed at the coals with the fire shovel. “Paul says he’ll handle everything but I don’t see how. There’s no way he can stop a lawsuit.” But I was tired of this one problem which was, all things considered, out of our hands in any case. I asked her about herself and Cave. “Is it wise my being up here with John, alone? No, I’m afraid not but that’s the way it is.” Her voice was hard and her back which was turned to me grew stiff, her movements with the fire shovel angry and abrupt. “People will use it against both of you. It may hurt him, and all of us.” She turned suddenly, her face flushed. “I can’t help it, Gene. I swear I can’t. I’ve tried to keep away. I almost flew East with Clarissa but when he asked me to join him here, I did. I couldn’t leave him.” “Will marriage be a part of the new order?” “Don’t joke.” She sat down angrily in a noise of skirts crumpling. “Cave must never marry. Besides it’s ... it isn’t like that.” “Really? I must confess I ...” “Thought we were having an affair? Well, it’s not true.” The rigidity left her as suddenly as it had possessed her. She grew visibly passive, even helpless, in the worn upholstered chair, her eyes on me, the anger gone and only weakness left. “What can I do?” It was a cry from the heart ... all the more touching because, obviously, she had not intended to tell me this. She’d turned to me because there was no one else to whom she could talk. “You ... love him?” That word which whenever I spoke it in those days always stuck in my throat like a diminutive sob. “More, more,” she said distractedly. “But I can’t _do_ anything or _be_ anything. He’s complete. He doesn’t need anyone. He doesn’t want me except as ... a companion, and advisor like you or Paul ... it’s all the same to him.” “I don’t see that it’s hopeless.”