The woman told Fern, got another message to relay to Constant. “He says he’s quitting.”
Constant stood unsteadily, rubbing his face with his hands. “Quitting?” he said dully. “Old Ransom K. Fern quitting?”
“Yah,” said the woman. She smiled hatefully. “He says you can’t afford to pay his salary any more. He says you better come in and talk to him before he goes home.” She laughed. “He says you’re broke.”
Back in Newport, the racket of Beatrice Rumfoord’s outburst had attracted Moncrief the butler to Skip’s Museum. “You called, Mum?” he said.
“It was more of a scream, Moncrief,” said Beatrice.
“She doesn’t want anything, thank you,” said Rumfoord. “We were simply having a spirited discussion.”
“How dare you say whether I want something or not?” said Beatrice hotly to Rumfoord. “I’m beginning to catch on that you’re not nearly as omniscient as you pretend to be. It so happens I want something very much. I want a number of things very much.”
“Mum?” said the butler.
“I’d like you to let the dog in, please,” said Beatrice. “I’d like to pet him before he goes. I would like to find out if a chrono-synclastic infundibula kills love in a dog the way it kills love in a man.”
The butler bowed and left.
“That was a pretty scene to play before a servant,” said Rumfoord.
“By and large,” said Beatrice, “my contribution to the dignity of the family has been somewhat greater than yours.”
Rumfoord hung his head. “I’ve failed you in some way? Is that what you’re saying?”
“In some way?” said Beatrice. “In every way!”
“What would you have me do?” said Rumfoord.
“You could have told me this stock-market crash was coming!” said Beatrice. “You could have spared me what I’m going through now.”
Rumfoord’s hands worked in air, unhappily trying on various lines of argument for size.
“Well?” said Beatrice.
“I just wish we could go out to the chrono-synclastic infundibula together,” said Rumfoord. “So you could see for once what I was talking about. All I can say is that my failure to warn you about the stock-market crash is as much a part of the natural order as Halley’s Comet — and it makes an equal amount of sense to rage against either one.”
“You’re saying you have no character, and no sense of responsibility toward me,” said Beatrice. “I’m sorry to put it that way, but it’s the truth.”
Rumfoord rocked his head back and forth. “A truth — but, oh God, what a punctual truth,” he said.
Rumfoord retreated into his magazine again. The magazine opened naturally to the center spread, which was a color ad for MoonMist Cigarettes. MoonMist Tobacco, Ltd., had been bought recently by Malachi Constant.
Pleasure in Depth! said the headline on the ad. The picture that went with it was the picture of the three sirens of Titan. There they were — the white girl, the golden girl, and the brown girl.
The fingers of the golden girl were fortuitously spread as they rested on her left breast, permitting an artist to paint in a MoonMist Cigarette between two of them. The smoke from her cigarette passed beneath the nostrils of the brown and white girls, and their space-annihilating concupiscence seemed centered on mentholated smoke alone.
Rumfoord had known that Constant would try to debase the picture by using it in commerce. Constant’s father had done a similar thing when he found he could not buy Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa” at any price. The old man had punished Mona Lisa by having her used in an advertising campaign for suppositories. It was the free-enterprise way of handling beauty that threatened to get the upper hand.
Rumfoord made a buzzing sound on his lips, which was a sound he made when he approached compassion. The compassion he approached was for Malachi Constant, who was having a far worse time of it than Beatrice.
“Have I heard your whole defense?” said Beatrice, coming behind Rumford’s chair. Her arms were folded, and Rumfoord, reading her mind, knew that she thought of her sharp, projected elbows as bullfighter’s swords.
“I beg your pardon?” said Rumfoord.
“This silence — this hiding in the magazine — this is the sum and total of your rebuttal?” said Beatrice.