The Man

had studied the antique-filled gracious Tudor living room with its two fireplaces. She had felt drunk with excitement that night, reckless, and following the brandy she had blurted out, “Arthur, I don’t want to embarrass you, but where is your wife?”

“In Florida,” he had replied calmly.

“No-no-” Her hand had drawn an arc around the room. “I don’t see a single framed photograph of your wife. Isn’t that peculiar?”

He had remained unruffled, smiling. “Not at all, my dear. You see, I put them away in drawers before you came the first time. They’re still in the drawers.”

“Oh.” She had speculated upon that act. “What if she came home suddenly?”

Still unperturbed, he had said, “I doubt that she will be here for many months.”

Sally had then wondered if they were quietly being divorced, and prayed for it, but had not bothered him with it, for she wanted no definite answers so early, not until she was indispensable to him. “I see. Well, it is cozier this way. I wouldn’t want her glaring at me. You were thoughtful, Arthur. You think of everything.”

He had come to sit on the sofa beside her. “I don’t want you distracted when you are with me. These evenings mean too much.”

She had held out her arms, and he had gone into them, embracing her passionately, kissing her eyelids and forehead and ears and lips. And then the special telephone from the Pentagon had come between them. That had been that.

The next time together, he had kissed her again, caressed her, in his car in the parking lot outside the cafe in Potomac, and had briefly resumed after driving her to her home, but he had done no more.

She had desired him, and was ready to satisfy his desire when he made the demand. He had not yet demanded her, at least not until tonight in the Red Room, when he had been somewhat drunk and was dazzled by her low-cut white gown. After she had teased him about that time in his living room, the hiding of Kay’s photographs, he had become serious and so had she. He missed her every day, he had whispered. He wanted to see her more, be with her alone, know her better. She had waited expectantly for the final overture, the ultimate invitation, and then President Dilman had stolen him away.

She could not let go of their precious exchange, its promise and potential, and she was determined to play their scene out to its conclusion. Perhaps, because of whatever Dilman had told him, his mood had been altered and he would not go further with her. Or perhaps nothing had changed. She must find out. And so instead of going to the East Room to help direct the seating, her duty as President Dilman’s social secretary, she had followed Arthur Eaton upstairs.

She stood now, uncertainly, in the vast West Hall of the President’s private second floor. No one, not even the valet, was in sight. She wondered which of the fifteen rooms Arthur had gone into, and then she wondered if he would be conferring with someone or be by himself. The champagne bubbled behind her eyes, reinforcing her adventure, making her intrepid.

Stealthily she went to the Monroe Room, tried the door, peered inside. It was empty. Shutting the door softly, she started toward the Yellow Oval Room, and then, nearing it, she heard his voice. She stopped beside the partially open doors, listening, trying to determine whether Arthur was speaking to someone in the room or on the telephone.

He was addressing Tim-that would be Tim Flannery-but still no evidence whether it was the press secretary in person or on the telephone. She listened harder. Only Arthur’s voice could be heard, then silences, then Arthur again. No question now. Telephone. To hell with discretion.

She released the folds of skirt gathered in her hand. She peered down at the cleft between her breasts, which were pressed high by the built-in brassiere cups of the evening gown. She took hold of her bodice at the waist with both hands, pulling it down an inch (the way it was meant to be) so that the milky rise at the top of her bosom was defined as her most attractive accessory. Lightly touching her hair to be sure every strand was in place, she straightened. Boldly she opened the first entrance door and walked into the Yellow Oval Room.

He was standing with the receiver at his mouth and ear, leaning against a sofa. When he saw her, he lifted his hand in welcome, smiling, but continued to listen to the voice on the other end. Suddenly he cupped the mouthpiece tightly and called out softly, “Be right with you, darling.”

Sally closed the doors, then wandered about the lustrous room, hardly listening to him, knowing only that he had apparently dictated something about Baraza, and was hearing Flannery read it back, and was suggesting revisions. On a fragile Louis XVI end table she noticed three books in a neat pile, the President’s reading, and when she bent to read the titles, she found them strangely incongruous with the furnishings of the living room. One was the latest Congressional Staff Directory, another Our CIA Defense by Montgomery Scott, and the third, at the bottom of the pile, a faded, mottled, secondhand volume, My Bondage and Freedomby Douglass. She drew the bottom book out from under the others and opened it to the title page, which read “My Bondage and My Freedom, Part I-Life as a Slave. Part II-Life as a Freeman. By Frederick Douglass.” It had been published in New York and Auburn by Miller, Orton, and Mulligan, in 1855. Sally turned to the lengthy dedication and then to the following page, and there, above the “Editor’s Preface,” was an inscription in pale blue ink, a slanting, definitely feminine inscription that read, “For my favorite Senator-the first Douglass would have been so proud of the present one. With enduring affection, Always, W.” The date was last year, the day and month President Dilman’s birthday, she remembered.

Sally examined the inscribed “Always, W.,” closed the book, lifted the others, and returned it to its former place. Going to the wall to the right of the fireplace, intending to study the two Cezanne paintings once more, her mind lingered on the inscription to Dilman. Her feline curiosity reached for, pawed and clawed for, a female W. connected with the President. Mrs. Wickland, wife of the House Majority Leader? No, unthinkable, not a personalinscription like this one. W.? At once, it came to Sally. W. for Wanda, Miss Wanda Gibson, the friend of the Spingers, whom Dilman had invited to the State Dinner tonight, who had neither responded to the invitation (gauche), nor appeared, although Dilman had insisted that she would (interesting). So Wanda Gibson, probably Wanda if she was the W., was a personal friend, even last year on his birthday. Intriguing.

Before she could speculate further, she felt cool, strong hands on her naked shoulders, and turned around to find herself looking up at Arthur Eaton.

“Business concluded,” he said. “I’m glad you came up here, Sally.”

“I thought you might need a secretary.”

He held her arms, squeezed them. “I might need someone who needs me.”

“I hoped you’d say that. I-I was unhappy the President interrupted us. It was going so well.”

“I was sorry, too, but it was important. He brought Baraza into line tonight. Not that it was so difficult. But I’m afraid he needed something affirmative to shore up his pride. In all my existence I’ve never been witness to anything like the social rejection that took place downstairs.”

“It was terrible. I hope he doesn’t blame it on me.”

“On you? Nonsense. You did what you could.”

“I swear, ninety-six of them accepted-accepted. Do you know how many showed up tonight? I counted the cards. Fifty-seven. I checked with my office right before dinner. And then with Edna. There was such a flurry of notes, telegrams, telephone calls, terribly apologetic, everyone fallen ill at once. I’ve never known an epidemic like that to sweep Washington. And the worst part of it was the cruel timing, the heavy last- minute declining, so that by the time I realized what was actually going on, it was too late to remove the table settings and chairs. I mean, it couldn’t be done, there was no time left. So there they were, those embarrassing chairs. I’m sorry for him. It’s so humiliating. It’ll be in all the columns tomorrow, you can be sure. No matter how many faults he has, he didn’t deserve this.”

“I don’t like it either,” Eaton said. “Whatever one’s views, there is such a practice as observing the social amenities. We have a generation of gauche boors.”

His usage of gauche brought to her mind what had been there a minute ago. “At least his friends showed up, the Spingers, the Abrahams, all-except one.”

Eaton’s eyebrows raised. “One?”

Sally savored her tidbit. “Have you ever heard of Miss Wanda Gibson? She works for Vaduz Exporters… no, of course you haven’t. Well, she lives with the Spingers, and as far as I can guess is an old friend of the President’s. He specifically invited her for tonight, and when she didn’t answer and I asked him what to do this morning, he