“Yes, yes. That would become important.”
“I suppose you will include the Solar Phoenix devolution?”
“Huh?”
“Why, I should think that was obvious. You’ll type the stars, won’t you? The progression of the hydrogen-helium transformation in each body is certainly a key datum.”
“Brother, you’re way ahead of me. I was thinking only of a master ballistic solution.”
“Why stop with that? When setting up a structural analogue why not make the symbolic mechanism as similar to the process as possible?”
“Sure, sure. You’re right. I just wasn’t that ambitious. I was willing to sell out for less. Tell me-d’you think the Board would go for it?”
“Why not? It’s worthwhile, it’s very expensive, it will run on for years, and it doesn’t show any prospect of being economically productive. I would say it was tailor-made for subsidy.”
“It does me good to hear you say so.”
They made a date for the following day.
As soon as he could gracefully do so, Monroe-Alpha excused himself from Thorgsen and went back to where he had last seen the girl. She was no longer there. He spent more than an hour looking for her, and was finally forced to the conclusion that she had left the party, or had hidden herself very cleverly. She was not in the swimming bath, or, if she were, she was capable of remaining under water longer than ten minutes. She was not in any of the accessible rooms-he had risked his life quite unconsciously, so thoroughly had he searched the dark corners.
He intended to tell Hazel of the incident on the way to her home, but he could not find the words. What was there to tell, really? He had seen an attractive girl, and had managed to trip her by his clumsiness. What was there in that? He did not even know her name. And it did not, somehow, seem like just the evening to speak to Hazel of other women. Good old Hazel!
She noticed his preoccupation, noticed that it differed in character from his earlier glumness. “Enjoy yourself, Clifford?”
“I think so. Yes.”
“Meet any attractive girls?”
“Why, uh, yes. Several.”
“That’s nice.”
“See here, Hazel-you don’t intend to go through with this silly divorce business, do you?”
“I do.”
One might think that he lay awake that night, filled with romantic thoughts of the nameless beauty. One would be wrong. He did think of her, but only for long enough to work out a suitable face-rehabilitating day dream, one in which he made killingly witty remarks anent his own awkwardness to which she responded with proper appreciation. It had not even been necessary to bulldoze any of the braves who surrounded her. They, too, had applauded his wit.
Nor did he think long of Hazel. If she saw fit to break the contract, it was her business. Not that there was any sense to it; it did not occur to him that anything could greatly change their relations. But he would stop this twice-a-week dine-and-visit. A woman appreciated a few surprises, he supposed.
All this was simply to clear the circuits for the serious getting-to-sleep thoughts. Thorgsen’s proposal. A really pretty problem, that. A nice problem —
Hamilton Felix had a much busier night. So busy, that he had much on his mind at breakfast the next morning. Decisions to make, matters to evaluate. He did not even turn on the news, and, when the annunciator informed him that a visitor waited outside his door, he punched the “welcome” key absent-mindedly, without stopping to consider whether he really wished to see anyone. Some woman, he had noticed, from the mug plate. His thoughts went no further.
She came in and perched herself on the arm of a chair, one leg swinging. “Well,” she said, “good morning, Hamilton Felix!”
He looked at her in puzzlement. “Do we know each other?”
“Noooo,” she said calmly, “but we will. I thought it was about time I looked you over.”
“I know!” He stabbed the air with a forefinger. “You are the woman Mordan picked for me!”
“That’s right. Of course.”
“Why, damn your impudence! What the devil do you mean by invading my privacy like this?”