them by three or four years - and Elspeth now guessed he was remembering some tragic error.
Luke added: 'Anyway, I don't aim to be a banker.'
Bern's dowdy girlfriend, Peg, leaned forward, interested. Like Bern, she was intense in her convictions', but she did not have his sarcastic tongue. 'What, then?'
'A scientist'
'What kind?'
Luke pointed upward. 'I want to explore beyond our planet'
Bern laughed scornfully. 'Space rockets! A schoolboy fantasy.'
Elspeth leaped to Luke's defense again. 'Knock it off, Bern, you don't know what you're talking about' Bern's subject was French literature;
However, Luke did not appear to have been stung by the sneer. Perhaps he was accustomed to having his dream laughed at 'I think it's going to happen,' he said. 'And I'll tell you something else. I believe science will do more than communism for ordinary people in our lifetime.'
Elspeth winced. She loved Luke, but she felt he was naive about politics. 'Too simple,' she said to him. 'The benefits of science are restricted to the privileged elite.'
'That's just not true,' Luke said. 'Steamships make life better for seamen as well as for transatlantic passengers.'
Bern said: 'Have you ever been in the engine room of an ocean liner?'
Yes, and no one was dying of scurvy.'
A tall figure cast a shadow over the table. 'Are you kids old enough to drink alcoholic liquor in public?' It was Anthony Carroll, wearing a blue serge suit that looked as if he had slept in it. With him was someone so striking that Elspeth uttered an involuntary murmur of surprise. She was a small girl with a petite figure, fashionably dressed in a short red jacket and a loose black skirt, with curls of dark hair escaping from under a little red hat with a peak. 'Meet Billie Josephson,' said Anthony.
Bern Rothsten said to her: 'Are you Jewish?'
She was startled to be asked so directly. Yes.'
'So you can marry Anthony, but you can't join his country club.'
Anthony protested: 'I don't belong to a country club.'
'You will, Anthony, you will,' said Bern.
Luke stood up to shake hands, nudged the table with his thighs, and knocked over a glass. It was unusual for him to be clumsy, and Elspeth realized with a twinge of annoyance that he was instantly taken with Miss Josephson. 'I'm surprised,' he said, giving her his most charming smile. 'When Anthony said his date was called Billie, I imagined someone six feet tall and built like a wrestler.'
Billie laughed merrily and slid into the booth beside Luke. 'My name is Bilhah,' she said. 'It's biblical, she was the handmaiden of Rachel and the mother of Dan. But I was brought up in Dallas, where they called me Billie- Jo.'
Anthony sat next to Elspeth and said quietly: 'Isn't she pretty?'
Billie was not exactly pretty, Elspeth thought She had a narrow face, with a sharp nose and large, intense, dark brown eyes. It was the whole package that was so stunning: the red lipstick, the angle of the hat, the Texas accent, and most of all her animation. While she talked to Luke, telling him some story about Texans now, she smiled, frowned, and pantomimed all kinds of emotion. 'She's cute,' Elspeth said to Anthony. 'I don't know why I never noticed her before.'
'She works all the time, doesn't go to many parties.'
'So how did you meet her?'
'I noticed her in the Fogg Museum. She was wearing a green coat with brass buttons and a beret. I thought she looked like a toy soldier fresh out of the box.' -
Billie was not any kind of toy, Elspeth thought. She was more dangerous than that. Billie laughed at something Luke had said and swiped his arm in mock admonishment. The gesture was flirtatious, Elspeth thought. Irritated, she interrupted them and said to Billie: 'Are you planning to beat the curfew tonight?'
Radcliffe girls were supposed to be in their dormitories by ten o'clock. They could get permission to stay out later, but they had to put their name in a book, with details of where they planned to go and what time they would be back; and their return time was checked. However, they were clever women, and the complex rules only inspired them to ingenious deceptions. Billie said: 'I'm supposed to be spending the night with a visiting aunt who has taken a suite at the Ritz. What's your story?'
'No story, just a ground-floor window that will be open all night.'
Billie lowered her voice. 'In fact, I'm staying with friends of Anthony's in Fenway.'
Anthony looked sheepish. 'Some people my mother knows, who have a large apartment,' he said to Elspeth.
'Don't give me that old-fashioned look, they're terribly respectable.'
'I should hope so,' Elspeth said primly, and she had the satisfaction of seeing Billie blush. Turning to Luke, she said: 'Honey, what time is the movie?'
He looked at his wristwatch. 'We've got to go,' he said.
Luke had borrowed a car for the weekend. It was a two-seater Ford Model A roadster, ten years old, its sit- up-and-beg shape looking antiquated beside the streamlined cars of the early forties. Luke handled the old car skillfully, obviously enjoying himself. They drove into Boston. Elspeth asked herself if she had been bitchy to Billie. Maybe', a little, she decided, but she was not going to shed any tears.
They went to see Alfred Hitchcock's latest film, Suspicion, at Loew's State Theatre. In the darkness, Luke - put his arm around Elspeth, and she laid her head on his shoulder. She felt it was a pity they had chosen a film about a disastrous marriage.
Around midnight they returned to Cambridge and pulled off Memorial Drive to park facing the Charles River, next to the boathouse. The car had no heater, and Elspeth turned up the fur collar of her coat and leaned against Luke for warmth.
They talked about the movie. Elspeth thought that in real life the Joan Fontaine character, a repressed girl brought up by stuffy parents, would never be attracted to the kind of the ne'er-do-well Gary Grant had played. Luke said: 'But that's why she fell for him -because he was dangerous.'
'Are dangerous people attractive?'
'Absolutely.'
Elspeth turned away from him and looked at the reflection of the moon on the restless surface of the water. Billie Josephson was dangerous, she thought Luke sensed her annoyance and changed the subject 'This afternoon, Professor Davies told me I could do my master's degree right here at Harvard if I want.'
'What made him say that?'
'I mentioned that I was hoping to go to Columbia. He said: 'What for? Stay here!' I explained that my family's in New York, and he said: 'Family. Huh like I couldn't possibly be a serious mathematician if I cared about seeing my little sister.'
Luke was the eldest of four children. His mother was French. His father had met her in Paris at the end of the First World War. Elspeth knew that Luke was fond of his two teenage brothers and doted on his eleven-year-old sister. 'Professor Davies is a bachelor,' she said. 'He lives for his work.'
'Have you thought about doing a master's?'
Elspeth's heart missed a beat 'Should I?' Was he asking her to go to Columbia with him?
You're a better mathematician than most of the Harvard men.'
'I've always wanted to work at the State Department.'
'That would mean living in Washington.'
Elspeth was sure Luke had not planned this conversation. He was just thinking aloud. It was typical of a man, to talk without a moment's forethought about matters that affected their whole lives. But he seemed dismayed that they might move to different cities. The solution to the dilemma must be as obvious to him as it was to her, she thought happily.
'Have you ever been in love?' he said suddenly. Realizing he had been abrupt, he added: 'It's a very personal question, I don't have any right to ask.' -
'That's okay,' she said. Any time he wanted to talk about love, it was fine with her. 'As a matter of fact, I
