"Gloria, Gloria, Gloria!" Lucy cut across his sentence. "You've been
talking about nothing but that dumb little blonde for months." Because
of the people in the room beyond, her voice was pitched low, but her
pale eyes glittered unpleasantly behind her spectacles. "I wish you had
married her. You'd have made a fine pair."
Gently, caressingly, the short hairs on the back of Bill's neck rose.
"Come back in here," Lucy said, hauling him back into the living room
where a number of people who had been enjoying the domestic fracas
suddenly broke into loud and animated chatter. "Dr. Hildebrand was
telling us all about nuclear fission."
"Can't find an ashtray," Bill muttered, seizing on something tangible.
"Can't find an ashtray in the whole darn place."
"We've been over this millions of times, Bill. You know--" she smiled at
the guests, a smile that carefully excluded Bill. "--I'm allergic to
smoke, but I never can get my husband to remember he isn't to smoke
inside the house."
"Now take the neutron, for example," Dr. Hildebrand said through a
mouthful of pate. "What is the neutron? It is only ... What was that?"
The wraith of Gloria crossed the foyer and disappeared. Bill took a step
forward; then stood still.
Lucy smiled self-consciously. "That's nothing at all. The house is
merely haunted."
Everyone laughed.
"Forgot something," Bill muttered, and dashed back into the study. He
yanked open the bottom drawer of the desk. Sure enough, there was a
bottle of Schenley, nearly a third full. "There are some advantages," he
thought as he tilted it to his lips, "in having a limited imagination."
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ September 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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