Recoil

glass.

He'd washed and tidied himself up, and he looked pretty much the same as he always had. The terrific inner strain was apparent only in the tight line of his mouth, the unconsciously self-conscious way in which he kept his lips drawn over the protruding teeth.

He sat down in one of the upholstered chairs. I handed him a glass and sat down across from him.

'Well,' he smiled at me almost timidly, 'here's how, Pat.'

'How,' I said. And then I banged the glass down, slopping whiskey onto the coffee table.

'Dammit to hell, Doc,' I said, 'I'm going to tell you a few things. You may not like-'

'Don't bother, Pat. I don't think you can tell me anything I don't already know.'

'You can't know, or-'

'Yes. Yes, I can know, all right, and still not accept. Fight against accepting. I think it might be better if I told you a few things about myself. When you know them you can understand about Lila.'

'You don't need to explain anything to me, Doc,' I said. 'I-'

'I should have done it before. You'll be hearing things from other people, and you may as well get the straight story from me… Do you recall one of Myrtle Briscoe's opening remarks this morning-the one about locking the vault?'

'Why,' I nodded, 'yes.'

'That little barb was intended for me, Pat. You and I have at least one thing in common.'

'You mean that-that you robbed a bank, too?'

'Just a safe, a vault in the college where I was an instructor.' He smiled wryly and shook his head. 'I made about as big a botch of it as you did, even though I didn't go to prison. I sometimes wonder whether that was a break, whether I wouldn't have been better off if…'

'No,' I said. 'No one's better off for that.'

'It's something I'll never know, I guess. How about another drink?'

I got the bottle and brought it over to the table. He added a little to the drink I poured for him, and took most of it at a swallow. He shuddered and smacked his lips.

'It happened about ten years ago, Pat,' he said, abruptly breaking into speech. 'I was about your age, a few years older, perhaps, and my prospects didn't look half as good. I'd scraped and starved and slaved through the best years of my life to get an education- and all I'd got out of it was an assistant professorship in a jerkwater college. It would be years, I knew, before I got any more than that; before I became a full professor and finally, if I was lucky, a department head. The last thing I should have done, from a practical standpoint, was to get married. I got married, anyway.'

He took another drink, glancing at me over the rim of his glass. 'I see the full significance of that escapes you, Pat. You can't understand what it means to have income staked at a definite and unchangeable level, and to take on an obligation which far exceeds it. We didn't plan it that way, of course. Lila was a student of mine, working her way through as I had. We were going to keep the thing secret until she finished school and I-or the two of us together-was making enough to establish a home. That's the way we planned it.

'What happened was, she became pregnant. She had to quit school and her part-time job. She had to have money and she was going to have to have more when the baby came and afterward. I got it for her one day… when the registrar was out of his office and the safe was standing open.'

'Doc,' I said, when he had been silent for several seconds. 'Are you sure you want to tell me all this?'

'I-I think so.' He rubbed his eyes. 'About the money. It didn't take them long to discover it was missing nor to prove that I'd taken it. I admitted it-said I'd lost it gambling. They let me resign and the police gave me twenty-four hours to get out of town.

'I didn't dare go near Lila; I was afraid even to send her a message. She had to have that money, you see. Had to have it.

'I came here, about as far away from the other place as I could get. I rented an office on credit and slept on the floor at night, and fixed my own meals whenever! had the money to buy food. Inside of a year I'd built up a pretty fair practice as a consulting psychologist, so I sent for her. I'd only written her one other letter before that. I hadn't signed it or given any address, and I was afraid to say much except that I was well and she wasn't to worry.

'Well, she came here, Pat. Alone. I'll never forget the look on her face when I asked her where the baby was. I-you see-she thought I'd abandoned her. All those months she'd thought that. The baby had been born dead.'

'I'm sorry, Doc,' I said. 'After all, though, it wasn't your fault.'

'I'm afraid you and I aren't the best judges of that, Pat,' he said, slowly. 'We're not equipped to judge -. anything about her. Well. Want to hear the rest of the story?'

'If you don't mind telling it.'

'There's not much more. I'd had to use my own name to establish my right to practice, so it didn't take long for my past to catch up with me. People found out who I was.

'They found out-but just a little late. A psychologist learns things that could be embarrassing, and there's an unusual number of such things to be learned around a state capitol. When the professional groups began cracking down on me, I was already in. I had to agree to stop practicing, but I was in. I've stayed in.'

'And you wish you were out?' I said.

'Naturally.' He shrugged. 'I've never belonged in this game any more than you belonged in Sandstone. Aside from the fact that I'm constantly forced to go against all my instincts and training, I just don't fit. I don't know my way around. I had the few original contacts, and I've used this place to get more. But I've had to depend on people like, well, our friend Hardesty to steer me. Being dependent upon anyone in a game of this kind has serious disadvantages.'

'Yes,' I said. 'I can see that it would.'

He stretched lazily and stood up, frowning absently at the small clock on the writing table. 'Well, I'll run along now. I didn't mean to stay so long, but I thought I'd put your mind at rest about a few things.'

And on that seemingly commonplace remark, Dr. Ronald Luther, ex-professor of psychology turned lobbyist, left the room.

Henry brought in my dinner and cleaned up the mess on the carpet. I ate, unpacked the clothes that had come from the store, and tried to read a while. I couldn't. I went to bed; sleep wouldn't come.

10

Doc came in the next morning while I was finishing my coffee, and sat down on the bed. He asked me if I'd slept well, and said the new suit looked nice on me. I made the proper replies. Not much was said after that until we reached the capitol.

We were starting up the long steps of the main entrance when he cleared his throat, with a trace of embarrassment, and spoke.

'I know you're as anxious to avoid unfavorable impressions as I am. If Mrs. Luther should visit your room again, it might be best to leave the door open.'

'What?' I said, and turned in my tracks and looked at him. 'But, Doc-'

I didn't finish the sentence, although it was an effort to choke it off. The look of stubborn embarrassment on his face stopped me. He'd convinced himself all over again that Lila couldn't be at fault. She couldn't, so someone else had to be. That was that.

'All right, Doc,' I said. 'I'll remember that.'

'Fine,' he said, obviously relieved. 'Do you think you can find your way home all right tonight? I don't know when I'll be leaving and of course you don't know your hours yet.'

I told him I'd be all right by myself; he hurried off. Seething inside, I walked on toward the highway