"I'm fifty, Miss Nolan. You're still very young. Thirty years from now, d'you think you'll know just as clearly what's been happening here, what will happen when those people come back through that door? Ah, I don't know, I'm talking like a fool--who's going to see thirty years ahead? Jim Doherty's already forgetting. In a bar." "What? Did you see him?" "Last night he was anyway, and it looked as if he was laying the foundation for a long one. After I took Vic home last night I came back to town, to the college--had to make some kind of pass at the week's work that's piled up on me--they've been very nice, leave of absence and so on, but I notice things pile up anyway, letters, term papers, what not. On the way home I stopped at Judson's--that's uptown, bar where I used to go sometimes with Jim and--Ann, before all this. He was there, tight as a tick, must have been working on it all afternoon. Not here today, I notice. Last night I tried to get him to go home with me, but he'd made friends with some character who looked respectable, capable of putting him to bed right side up." Edith said absently: "Someone will always be around to put him to bed." "Know what you mean. Democracy in action." _I can't smile, Herb._ "Well--go for a walk, I guess. Can't sit still. 'Bye." He stumbled off, a weary progress with a slow grab at every chair-back along the awkward route... Cecil Warner came through the doorway at the left, alone, his broad face sallow, all ruddiness washed away. He passed the press table with a shake of the head and no other answer to some tactless and poorly timed question. He came up the aisle, and sank with slow motion into the seat beside Edith, relaxing his bulk all at once with the suddenness of an old man's muscles letting go. "Tell me," she said. "A message. She wanted me to come to you with a message. 'Tell my friend Edith I'll sleep well tonight, and ask her whether she'd like me to try Doris Wayne in oil or watercolor.'" He would not quite look at her. "She was smiling, Edith. It seemed to be a little flash of happiness, like a breeze on a still day." "It's good if she can think ahead. I've been trying to, but I can't. Herb Chalmers was here, wandered off--good Lord, half an hour ago! I've just been sitting like a vegetable." She saw his eyes were held by the clock, against his will. "Cecil, does it necessarily mean anything at all, when they stay out this long?" He looked at her then, studying her face as if from a distance, deeply aware of her and certainly no less aware of the girl in the detention cell. He said: "It's not good." "It's what would happen if there was a disagreement, isn't it?"