"One of her girls. She was down here earlier. She's gone." He jumped up and came over to the sofa where I sat with the phone. "Fine thing! I thought you said you were here working--not cheating!" "A slight relapse, say. What of it?" "Relapse!" His voice was thin and high. His fists were doubled. His face streamed as if he were shoveling in a boiler room. "Sweet guy, you are! Oh--you've got a good brain! Even talent! But all you do is whore around with your brains and your god-damned talent! And yourself! You look at a woman--you just _look_ at her--and you make her feel like a slut! You've got a wife that's too good for a good guy--and a thousand times too good for you! So what? A weekend off--and you louse the place up with a chippy--! Somebody tries to dig a decent, lovely girl out of a bad spot--and you come along and roll your dirty eyes on her--!" I said, "Look, Paul. If you're going to rage around at people for keeping tarts in their homes, start with your own, will you?" He swung but he didn't follow hard and I ducked it. So he began to sob, then--back in his chair. I went to the bathroom, broke out a clean tumbler, dumped in the contents of three of the sodium amytal capsules Tom had prescribed for me, added water, swished it around, slogged back to the sitting room, poured in three fingers of whisky, and handed it to him. He took a deep, lunging breath and drank the whole business. He sobbed a while longer. Then, in a low, self-pitying voice, he began a rhapsody, or maybe threnody, on Marcia. The drink hit him, and the pills; he grew detailed and intimate; finally he said he'd lie down for an hour before going on with the search. It was getting light by that time. PART FOUR _Rondo_ 1 Paul's "hour" of sleep would last, I felt certain, for the best part of the morning. I went into my bedroom and looked at him. He had taken off his shirt and his shoes. He lay on his back with his mouth open, his lips nursing the air, his brow creased with wrinkles set there by a life of concentration--and distorted now with sorrow and pain. He was sweating like the inside of a still: the drops welled and ran on his face and his hairy chest and his ribs. Even his feet were bright-sprinkled. As I looked at him he stirred; a murmurous sound of protest and despair came out of the poor guy--a sound tragic and pitiful and weird, for there was nothing human about it. Hurt animals make such noises. Ridiculous--but I remembered how a young man could feel about a girl. I would like to say that I dressed, girded my spirit, and took some step on Paul's behalf--or even that I sat down at my table with grim and relentless character and put the milk-cart morning to good account by knifing further excess from my serial. Such was not the case. I lay on my sitting room couch with the purpose of gathering my forces for both efforts--but I met with failure.