Sheklov blinked, experiencing the sensation of being displaced backward in time more acutely than ever. How long since kulturny ceased to be a fad-word Back There? Ten years? Twenty?
“What makes you say that?” he inquired, honestly curious.
“Well-uh-its links with European tradition. Speaking French there, for one thing.” Lora’s answer had a seizing at-straws sound. “Mother’s maid Estelle is from Montreal, and she speaks French. I think it’s a romantic language.”
Obviously, having recovered from her annoyance at failing to get all the way with Danty, she was sliding into a regular role. Now she added in a wistful tone. “I’ve often dreamed of standing on the Champs-Elys&s and watching the sun go down behind the Arc de Triumphal”
“You’d have a long wait,” Danty said.
She glared at him. “Shit, you know what I mean!”
But Sheklov’s nape had suddenly begun to prickle. Danty had uttered that statement with authority. And it was quite correct; if you were standing in the Champs-Elyses, the sun couldn’t set behind the Arc de Triumphed. He said, before Lora could go on, “You’ve been there, have you?”
“How would I get a passport?” Danty grunted, and turned to his drink again.
Yet there had been assurance in his tone . . .
Still, Lora was talking again. “Have you traveled much, Don? It’s easier for Canadians, isn’t it?”
“Well, I guess so,” Sheklov said, mentally reviewing Holtzer’s life-story. “But me, I haven’t been around too much. We’re one of the few countries left with a frontier,
you know. Pushing north instead of west. That gives us a lot of elbow-room. So we-”
The door. which Powell had closed on leaving, slammed wide, and there in the opening was Peter. Obviously he had been drinking heavily; he was flushed and unsteady on his feet.
“Well, well” he exclaimed. “That’s so sweet! My sister and her johnny reb snuggled up!”
“Zip your mouth. you reeky turd,” Lora said, and twisted on the couch so her back was towards her brother.
“Hey!” Sheklov exclaimed. half-rising. A look of instant fury had appeared on Peter’s face, and he seemed about to launch himself bodily at Lora.
“Oh, fade away” she told him over her shoulder.
“Peter?” a richly resonant voice said from outside. Yes, it was Powell back again. “Ah, there you are” He touched the boy companionably on the arm, and left his hand there as Peter stepped back against him.
“I’m going to make you pay for that!” he snarled at Lora.
“Peter!” Powell reproved. “That’s no way to talk to-”
“So how would you like to be called a reeky turd?”
“Oh, sticks and stones, you know, sticks and stones” Having located Peter again, Powell seemed to have had his good humor restored too. He eased the boy into a chair and sat on its arm, his hand still where he had first put it. “I must say the party’s going splendidly, isn’t it? Are you enjoying yourself, Lora?”
“In the company of my johnny reb, yes, thank you.”
“My dear girl!” Powell said, shocked. “That’s not a terra to bandy around lightly, you know. To call someone a reb is to accuse him of being a wastrel, whose actions strike at the very foundations of our cherished heritage”
And Danty glanced up and nodded: mm-hm!
That threw Powell completely. He almost gaped for a moment, and then added, making a fast comeback, “Though we must not condemn too harshly. It’s not for us to sit in judgment, after all.”
“Except on ourselves,” Danty murmured, and packed a dozen personal implications into the comment. Powell got them all. He tugged at his clerical collar as though it were suddenly too tight.
“Very true. I must remember that phrase. ‘Sermons in stones . . .’ And we’re told that stony ground will be the
lot of some of our seed. Tell me, young man, are you lapsed from the brotherhood of your church?”
“I guess so,” Danty said indifferently.
“Shame! But we mustn’t lose hope for you, must we? ‘There is more joy in heaven-‘ And so on.”
Maliciously Danty said, “And so on-what?”
“‘Over one sinner that repenteth,”‘ Powell answered automatically. Then he realized he was being needled. He rose.