For a moment, Constant forgot that the man whose hand he shook was simply one aspect, one node of a wave phenomenon extending all the way from the Sun to Betelguese. The handshake reminded Constant what it was that he was touching — for his hand tingled with a small but unmistakable electrical flow.
Constant had not been bullied into feeling inferior by the tone of Mrs. Rumfoord’s invitation to the materialization. Constant was a male and Mrs. Rumfoord was a female, and Constant imagined that he had the means of demonstrating, if given the opportunity, his unquestionable superiority.
Winston Niles Rumfoord was something else again — morally, spatially, socially, sexually, and electrically. Winston Niles Rumfoord’s smile and handshake dis. mantled Constant’s high opinion of himself as efficiently as carnival roustabouts might dismantle a Ferris wheel.
Constant, who had offered his services to God as a messenger, now panicked before the very moderate greatness of Rumfoord. Constant ransacked his memory for past proofs of his own greatness. He ransacked his memory like a thief going through another man’s billfold. Constant found his memory stuffed with rumpled, overexposed snapshots of all the women he had had, with preposterous credentials testifying to his ownership of even more preposterous enterprises, with testimonials that attributed to him virtues and strengths that only three billion dollars could have. There was even a silver medal with a red ribbon — awarded to Constant for placing second in the hop, skip, and jump in an intramural track meet at the University of Virginia.
Rumfoord’s smile went on and on.
To follow the analogy of the thief who is going through another man’s billfold: Constant ripped open the seams of his memory, hoping to find a secret compartment with something of value in it. There was no secret compartment — nothing of value. All that remained to Constant were the husks of his memory — unstitched, flaccid flaps.
The ancient butler looked adoringly at Rumfoord, went through the cringing contortions of an ugly old woman posing for a painting of the Madonna. “The mah-stuh — ” he bleated. “The young mah-stuh.”
“I can read your mind, you know,” said Rumfoord.
“Can you?” said Constant humbly.
“Easiest thing in the world,” said Rumford. His eyes twinkled. “You’re not a bad sort, you know — ” he said, “particularly when you forget who you are.” He touched Constant lightly on the arm. It was a politician’s gesture — a vulgar public gesture by a man who in private, among his own kind, would take wincing pains never to touch anyone.
“If it’s really so important to you, at this stage of our relationship, to feel superior to me in some way,” he said to Constant pleasantly, “think of this: You can reproduce and I cannot.”
He now turned his broad back to Constant, led the way through a series of very grand chambers.
He paused in one, insisted that Constant admire a huge oil painting of a little girl holding the reins of a pure white pony. The little girl wore a white bonnet, a white, starched dress, white gloves, white socks, and white shoes.
She was the cleanest, most frozen little girl that Malachi Constant had ever seen. There was a strange expression on her face, and Constant decided that she was worried about getting the least bit dirty.
“Nice picture,” said Constant.
“Wouldn’t it be too bad if she fell into a mud puddle?” said Rumfoord.
Constant smiled uncertainly.
“My wife as a child,” said Rumfoord abruptly, and he led the way out of the room.
He led the way down a back corridot and into a tiny room hardly larger than a big broom closet: It was ten feet long, six feet wide, and had a ceiling, like the rest of the rooms in the mansion, twenty feet high. The room was like a chimney. There were two wing chairs in it.
“An architectural accident — ” said Rumfoord, closing the door and looking up at the ceiling.
“Pardon me?” said Constant.
“This room,” said Rumfoord. With a limp right hand, he made the magical sign for spiral staircase. “It was one of the few things in life I ever really wanted with all my heart when I was a boy — this little room.”