“So? Then why did he challenge me?” “It was a mistake, I tell you. I am deeply sorry.”
“See here,” said Hamilton. “Is this procedure? If he made an honest error, why does he not come to me like a man? I’ll receive him in peace.” “He is not able to.”
“Why? I did no more than wing him.” “Nevertheless, he is not able to. I assure you he has been disciplined.”
Hamilton looked at him sharply. “You say ‘disciplined’ — and he is not able to meet with me. Is he-perhaps-so ‘disciplined’ that he must tryst with a mortician instead?”
The other hesitated a moment. “May we speak privately-under the rose?”
“There is more here than shows above water. I don’t like the rose, my friend Norbert.” McFee shrugged. “I am sorry.”
Hamilton considered the matter. After all, why not? The set-up looked amusing. He hooked an arm in McFee’s. “Let it be under the rose, then. Where shall we talk?”
McFee filled the glass again. “You have admitted, Friend Felix, that you are not wholly in sympathy with the ridiculous genetic policy of our so-called culture. We knew that.”
“How?”
“Does it matter? We have our ways. I know you are a man of courage and ability, ready for anything. Would you like to put your resources to work on a really worthwhile project?”
“I would need to know what the project is.”
“Naturally. Let me say-no, perhaps it is just as well not to say anything. Why should I burden you with secrets?”
Hamilton refused the gambit. He just sat. McFee waited, then added, “Can I trust you, my friend?”
“If you can’t, then what is my assurance worth?”
The intensity of McFee’s deep-set eyes relaxed a little for the first time. He almost smiled. “You have me. Well…I fancy myself a good judge of men. I choose to trust you. Remember, this is still under the rose. Can you conceive of a program, scientifically planned to give us the utmost from the knowledge we have, which would not be inhibited by the silly rules under which our official geneticists work?”
“I can conceive of such a program, yes.”
“Backed by tough-minded men, men capable of thinking for themselves?”
Hamilton nodded. He still wondered what this brave was driving at, but he had decided to see the game through.
“There isn’t much more I can say…here,” McFee concluded. “You know where the Hall of the Wolf is?”
“Certainly.”
“You are a member?”
Hamilton nodded. Everybody, or almost everybody, belonged to the Ancient Benevolent and Fraternal Order of the Wolf. He did not enter its portals once in six months, but it was convenient to have a place to rendezvous in a strange city. The order was about as exclusive as a rain storm.
“Good. Can you meet me there, later tonight?”
“I could.”
“There is a room there where some of my friends sometimes gather. Don’t bother to inquire at the desk-it’s in the Hall of Romulus and Remus, directly opposite the escalator. Shall we say at two hundred?”
“Make it half past two.”
“As you wish.”
Monroe-Alpha Clifford saw her first during the grand promenade. He could not have told truthfully why she caught his eye. She was beautiful, no doubt, but beauty alone is, of course, no special mark of distinction among girls. They cannot help being beautiful, any more than can a Persian cat, or a luna moth, or a fine race horse.
What she did possess is less easy to tag. Perhaps it will do to say that, when Monroe-Alpha caught sight of her, he forgot about the delightful and intriguing conversation he had been having with Gerald, he forgot that he did not care much for dancing and had been roped into taking part in the promenade only through his inadvertent presence in the ballroom when the figure was announced, he forgot his own consuming melancholy.
He was not fully aware of all this. He was only aware that he had taken a second look and that he thereafter spent the entire dance trying to keep track of her. As a result of which he danced even worse than usual. He was forced to apologize to his temporary partners more than once for his awkwardness.