'Are you going to help him?'
'My dear, I've never heard of the Llewellyns before.'
'But when he finds out…'
'We may educate him by then.'
But a man can't be educated to forget a dream.
Harry said nothing for a few moments. Carol gripped the wheel tight. Maybe he was finished with the dream. That was the chance, but she had had to tell him. The Llewellyns stood between them more mountainous than a jealous wife.
'Stop the car.' His voice burned like dry ice.
Carol pulled blindly over to the side of the road and left the motor purring. She sat immobile, waiting to be sentenced. His hand was a steel band around her arm. The pain awakened her and she turned her face slowly toward him, her expression a mingling of tearful irony.
'Harry, I had to tell you.'
'You know the Llewellyns?' He stared at her incredulously.
'How should I have handled this?' Her voice was desperate, pleading for compassion. 'It's like loading the gun for a suicide,' she cried freely. 'Yes, we know them, we know them. They're bosom pals, they're equals, they're neighbors…'
'Turn the car around,' he interrupted brusquely. 'I want to talk to your dear father.'
Carol pulled the car up to the house. She tried to stop him, clinging for a moment to his arm. Her tears fell on his hand, and he wiped them crudely against his trousers, as if a disease had touched him. He jumped out quickly, his face a frozen mask. He turned insultingly to her from the mansion steps. 'Anyway, I play a lousy game of tennis.'
Carol didn't wait for him to finish. She raced the car down the path until the white streak looked like a frightened rabbit.
Harry burst wide the library doors. Phillip stood motionless at the window, as if he had watched the brief scene before the house. He was cool and contained, the way old matadors are before the angry bull charges.
'Is there anything you ought to tell me, Phillip?' Harry stood fierce, fists clenched like a boxer's.
'About Carol?'
'Phillip, stop treating me like the village idiot.'
'For a change, you're puzzling me, Harry,' Phillip said coldly.
'You'll have to speak in complete sentences.'
'You lied to me Phillip. You've been pulling your psychiatrist bit on me. You've known all about the Llewellyns, about their island, their ice. We're supposed to be working together. Or we were working together. Then you turn into a gentleman farmer. Crude Mr. Hatch even has to have a different name or he'll offend the servants. But this goes too far. The Llewellyns are mine. You should have told me, Phillip, it was the one time you should have played it straight.'
'Harry,' Phillip interrupted, 'I will never help you with the Llewellyns. Never covet your neighbor's possessions, you know. Got to keep things at home clean, especially when to mess them up is suicide, insanity. You don't understand leisure. I am a man of leisure.
That means I have friends. Among them are the Llewellyns. So what?
What does that have to do with you? You're young, you're new.
They're an old part of me. I've known them as long as I've been in this house. They're a part of my life I don't wish to sully.'
Phillip stared relentlessly at Harry. 'If I had told you this immediately, we would never have accomplished anything. As it stands now we are fairly comfortable men, even wealthy. Yes, I can be a gentleman farmer and be equal to the Llewellyns. I'm not interested in their jewels when I can lead their lives. I can't help you if you don't know what to do with your life.'
'Phillip, you know my story. You had to level with me.'
'Level with you! Level! Do you know what the word means?
You're obsessed. You have fantasies; you steal for kicks. I'm a businessman, Harry. I've explained that before.'
'Analyze all you want, Phillip. Have fun, twist some words about.
You have no trouble speaking in sentences, but you're a liar, a deceiver.'
'I might have tried to show you discipline, but I don't think I've deceived you.'
'Why did you bring me to this fucking country club? So I could learn to be as convincing a phony as you?'
'Okay, Harry, I lose. I didn't call this one right. I thought — I actually thought you might have changed.'
'You're really sentimental, aren't you Phillip? Just know one thing.
You haven't come home to retire, my perfect gentleman. You've come here to die.'
Harry walked out of the study leaving the door open behind him.
Phillip didn't look after him. He just listened to Harry's heels echoing in the marble hall.
CHAPTER XIII
Carol and Phillip did not speak much to one another that evening.
They had a brief cocktail together in the study before they left for the Llewellyns' farewell party. They weren't too interested in going.
Particularly Carol, who had been unusually withdrawn all day.
Phillip knew where her thoughts were, living or dying. Perhaps that was why he insisted so much that she go with him tonight. Yes, Phillip could come through wonderfully sometimes and he did pretty much always. It was a warm night, with a warm breeze, a delightful summer evening, ideal for a wonderful party. And Mrs. Llewellyn was as famous for her parties as she was for her diamonds.
They pulled up in front of the huge Llewellyn mansion. Masked guests were arriving, as was commanded in the invitations. As the gatekeeper took the car from Phillip, he reached into the glove compartment for his small black mask.
The ballroom blazed. The many-tiered chandeliers and ornate sconces were ablaze with soft pink lights. The white-covered buffet tables were sumptuously filled, eager to oblige the slightest appetite.
French provincial divans were scattered about the ballroom, but the luxurious scarlet carpet was piled so thick it was not necessary to sit or lie on anything else. A Spanish orchestra played softly at one end of the room behind an ornate screen. The music seemed to come from nowhere. Guests sat about in groups, talking, drinking, dancing.
Everyone was dressed in evening wear and masks. The effect was truly extraordinary.
A young man meticulously dressed in tails wore the head of an old shriveled bird. A buxom, rather middle- aged woman, had a rubber mask with the face of Betty Boop. The combinations were bizarre, but the guests never forgot their manners, as though they had frequently gone to balls with grotesque heads.
Carol was drinking with a group of people. She had managed to start drinking the instant she arrived. Instead of a mask, she had made her eyes up to look Egyptian, the lids covered heavily with blue-green shadow. Thick black lines exaggerated the almond shape of her eyes, and by contrast they looked silver, violet. Directly under her eyes, she wore a black lace veil, dotted with tiny sapphire sequins. Her hair was combed straight back from her forehead and fell down her shoulders.
She wore metallic dust in it, so that it shone silver and gold. Carol knew she looked good tonight.
Not far from her group was the diamond-loaded Mrs. Llewellyn and Phillip, standing together, engaged in an exchange of banalities, which Phillip charmingly tolerated. Mrs. Llewellyn wore a black half-mask, studded with diamonds.
'And so we're off for the tropical south, Phillip darling. I'm so glad we have this chance to be together after all.' She pursed her lips and giggled.
Phillip looked across at Carol's exotic and remote eyes. Beneath the make-up, he sensed detachment. He
