"No. I've got a legitimate beef. Art and music, for instance. Butch-type guys stay away from them like the plague. What happens? The fags have inherited, and that puts me in a hell of a spot. If I want to go to the ballet or the opera or an exhibit, it has to be with a fag or alone. And I hate fags worse than Squares." "Why can't you go with girls?" "Sweetheart, I love ladies, but I like men too. Men and women think differently, and sometimes I like to be with a man's point of view." "I'll punish you for that," Gabby said. "What I do?" "Not now. Sam isn't a one-twelfth friend, is he?" "No. He's twelve-twelfths. Whole." "How did you meet him?" "At Princeton. We went down for a fencing meet and Sam was host for the visiting team. You should have seen him ... the fencer's dream. All in white except for black stockings." "Did you really work your way through college?" "Yes Ma'am. I was a telegrapher. I was a telegrapher my last year in high school too." "Were you friendly with Sam right from the beginning?" "No. Not until much later." Lennox frowned. "I was jealous at first. Princeton was elegant. Society. And I was trying to climb up from a clam-shack. I hated Sam." "That's not nice," Gabby said. "I was a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. That's an explanation, not an excuse. Then I met him again in the business, and we got close." "Had he changed?" "No. I changed. There's nothing like making money to discharge the venom in you. Sam was always the same. A whole man." Lennox smiled gently. "I like the way you look when you talk about him," Gabby said. "It shows how much you love him." "Love him?" Lennox was startled. "My God! Don't say that. Men aren't allowed to talk like that nowadays." "But you do, don't you?" Lennox nodded. "You know how I feel about you. If you were turned into a man.... That's how I feel about Sam." He stopped suddenly and faced Gabby. "I've got you both, Gabby. Help me hold on to both." "I'm not jealous," she said honestly. "I know that, but don't do one thing. If he's got faults that I can't see, don't point them out to me. You and Sam can sit in a corner and make fun of me all you like. God knows, I'm a prize noodnick. You can take my noodnickery apart and I won't care. Just let me love both of you." "Why did you flinch when I said lovers' knots?" Gabby asked. He looked at her in awe. "Gabrielle, you're a great woman. I thought I covered perfectly." She shook her head and smiled. "Talking to you's like turning a corner in March. You never know what's going to blow into your face." "What were you remembering?" "A Quaker, a blonde, and a knot." "I don't understand." "I did a bad thing Christmas Eve. I got dirty drunk. I imagined I was somebody else.... A Quaker from Philadelphia named Fox." "Why Fox?" "I don't know. I picked up a blonde named Aimee Driscoll. A-I-M-E-E." "I don't want to hear about her." "I don't want to talk about her." "And the knot?"