Boston (Mass.) -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Science fiction; Time travel -- Fiction
Passing the gold-domed balustraded beauty of Bullfinch's classic New
State House, he wondered how the crest of the hill had looked when
John Hancock had lived there, in his magnificent Georgian mansion,
with its landscaped gardens and carriage house containing the
merchant-governor's gilded English coach.
Old Boston held Justin tightly in its grip even after he turned the
key in his own lock and entered his house on Louisburg Square. For the
house, if not quite Federalist, dated back to the early era of Clipper
Ship affluence. Fine white paneling, graceful mahogany banisters,
blue-and-gold silk wall covering of heavy Chinese silk, Sheraton
furniture, Revere silverware--all combined to retain illusion of a past
still alive.
Not until he walked upstairs was the illusion shattered. And again it
was not the room that shattered it--for graceful mantel above gently
roaring fire, fine old furniture and a pair of glowing Copley portraits
on the west wall maintained the dream.
It was the two persons awaiting him there that spoiled Justin's vision
of time past relived. Jack Fellowes joggled cubed ice in a broad-beamed
highball glass in front of the fire--as modern in his midnight-blue
dinner jacket and soft white shirt as the post-Freudian psychiatry he
practiced.
He said, "Ah, there, Charley, have a drink on you." Then, with a rueful
half-smile at Justin's wife, Marie, "You seem to have married the only
banker in history who works overtime."
In an ice-blue satin dinner gown Marie Chandler Justin was as brilliant
as a candle's white flame--and even less warm. She stirred faintly in
greeting to her husband, said, "You're late, Charles--you'll barely
have time to dress."
Justin reached for a drink that stood ready atop the red-lacquer
Chinese cabinet some ancestor of his wife's had brought from Canton. He
said, "Sorry, I forgot about the Iveson party. I don't think I'm up to
it tonight. You two will have more fun without me."
Marie pouted prettily, said, "But, darling, I'll have to explain to
everybody--and they'll all think the most horrible things."
"Let 'em," said Justin bluntly. He turned to Fellowes, added, "By the
way, how are you coming along with Marie's psychoanalysis?"
"These things take time," said Fellowes.
"So I understand," said Justin. Some devil prompted him to add, "I've
heard that some women wear out two or three psychoanalysts in a single
lifetime."
"Charles!" Marie looked warningly up from the pleats in her skirt.
"Really, Charles." Fellowes sounded hurt.
"Sorry," said Justin. He decided to jump the conversational track
before there was a wreck. "Henri Dubois visited me this afternoon."
* * * * *
"You mean the Golden Rule fellow?" the psychiatrist inquired.
"Interesting phenomenon of our times. What sort of chap is he?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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