She dragged and shoved and pulled until she got him under the covers. "He won't get you, Jack," she whispered. "You'd fight for me if I were in trouble. And I'll fight for you."

In the morning, Laura got up, moving softly as a bird on the sand, and left him to himself in the bedroom, still noisily and miserably asleep with a fullblown, brutal hangover brewing under his closed eyes.

She had to make it up to him, redeem herself. And she could only think of one thing. So before noon she called Terry and asked him to dinner.

"Sounds great," he said in innocent surprise and pleasure. "I was counting on mooching from you," he admitted, laughing.

When Jack woke up she told him what she had done. She waited until he had had four cups of coffee and eight aspirins and some forced warm milk and raw egg. He said nothing but "No. No!" to whatever she was trying to get into him. He sat in the kitchen with his head in his hands, and Laura began to fear he was still a little drunk. She had thrown out the rest of the whiskey.

"Where's the bottle?" he asked her finally, around the middle of the afternoon.

"Gone. I tossed it." He nodded painfully, resigned.

"Jack," she said softly. "Terry's coming to dinner."

He lifted his throbbing head to gape at her. "Are you trying to kill me, Mother? Or just drive me nuts?" he said.

"I'm going to save you. Save us," she said pa.s.sionately. "We're at the crossroads, Jack. This is the first real crisis we've had. We can't just fall apart. We have too much to save, too much worth saving. We have love, too, and I'm not going to let him hurt you any more."

Somehow in the strength she found to fight Jack's battle was the strength to fight her own. The downright shock and humiliation of finding that her two ex-lovers were romancing might have thrown her into a fullblown depression. But now she hadn't time. It was Jack's turn. She loved him, she was absolutely sure of that. She was not absolutely sure she loved Tris any more. Nor was she sure now that she didn't love Beebo. Jack was her security, her chosen life; he deserved her loyalty.

But to her chagrin, her n.o.ble speech had very little effect on him. He got out of his chair with much agonised effort, making a face, and headed for the coat closet.

"Where are you going?" she asked anxiously, running after him.

"For a bottle."

"Oh, Jack, no!"

He turned to face her, sliding awkwardly into his coat sleeves. "Do you want me to go through this sober?"

"Darling, you don't even have to look at him! You can lock yourself in the John and sing hymns if you want to. I just want to talk to him."

"About the weather?"

"I'll get him out of here, I swear I will!"

"How? With a can opener? TNT?" He was moving toward the door as he spoke with Laura clinging to his arm and trying to hold him back.

"Darling, trust me!" she begged. She was not at all sure that she could get Terry out again, once he got in, but she had to make Jack calm down. She was frantic to stop him.

"Trust you?" He turned and looked at her uncertainly, his hand on the front door k.n.o.b, and gave a little snort. "That doesn't work. I tried it."

"Oh, you d.a.m.n, fatuous idiot!" she cried in exasperation, dropping his arm to stamp to the middle of the room and face him from there as if from a podium. "I open one G.o.ddam letterout of love and anxietyto spare you pain. And the thing backfires. Do you have to crucify yourself? I said I was sorry and I am. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she yelled.

"Were you born that way?" he snapped.

"Shut up and listen!" she cried. "Jack, let me make it up to you, let me try. You have no right to call yourself my husband if you won't give me a chance, and I'm telling you right now, Jack Mann, if you won't I'll walk out of this house and your life forever." She paused, flushed and trembling, for breath, while Jack stared at her, surprised, half-convinced, and himself trembling slightly from the hangover.

Finally he went to the arm of the nearest chair and sat down and said, "All right, Wife. Read him the riot act while I sing hymns in the bathroom, if you think it'll do any good."

"Oh, Jack." She ran to him, all pity and tenderness, and kissed his frowning face. He put his head back and ignored her.

Terry arrived at seven, half an hour late, with a huge bouquet of roses for Laura. "For Mrs. Mann," he said, bowing, and then gave her a quick embrace. "You look great, honey."

"Thanks," she said with reserve. "I'll put them in water."

"Where's Jack? Oh, there you are." Terry made a running jump to the couch where Jack was lying in state, wearing his hangover like a royal robe.

Jack let out all his breath in a wail of anguish when Terry hit him.

"Where did you get the flowers?" Laura asked, coming back in with them arranged in a tall vase.

"Nick's. On the corner. I had to charge 'em to you, Laura. I hope you don't mind." He smiled charmingly. "Your credit's much better than mine around here."

Jack laughed softly. "You haven't changed a bit, have you?" he said to Terry.

Laura sat down and looked at Terry's bright young face, smiling happily around a mouthful of salted pecans, and wondered if her little trick would work. It had to. But it might not. She felt a little sick, seeing Jack so miserable.

"No drinks?" Terry said, suddenly conscious of the lack of alcohol.

"Milk," Laura offered.

"Milk punch?" he asked.

"Just bare milk," Jack drawled.

"What's the matter with you?" Terry said and laughed at him. "Have a nut." And he popped one in Jack's half open mouth. "You aren't on the wagon, are you?"

"I was," Jack said. "Till last night."

"No kidding. G.o.d. Amazing. Since when?"

"Since we got married last August. A little before."

"Laura, how'd you do it?" He grinned at her.

"I didn't have to," she said. "The day you walked out of his life all the good things walked in."

"Including you?" Terry asked.

"Including me," she shot back.

"Oh." He smiled ruefully. "I wasn't that bad, was I?" he asked Jack. He seemed to think it was comfortably funny, like everything else connected with Jack. "Did I drive you to drink, honey?" he said.

"Only on the bad days," Jack said. "Unfortunately, there weren't any good days."

Terry laughed and stuck another nut in Jack's mouth.

"That's all," Jack told him, wincing. "The d.a.m.n pecans sound like depth charges when I chew." He stroked his head carefully.

There was a silence while Terry ate, Laura stared at him nervously, and Jack concentrated on his pains. Laura wanted to make Terry uncomfortable, self-conscious. But it was nearly a lost cause.

"What's for dinner?" he asked suddenly, unaware that he was supposed to notice the silence.

She told him.

"Great," he said. More silence. Laura was determined to embarra.s.s him, and Jack was too ill to care about conversation. Slowly, Terry began to realize something was amiss. Rather than take the hint he tried to lighten the atmosphere with chatter.

[[How do you like the married life, old man?" he asked.

"He liked it fine the day before yesterday," Laura said crisply. Jack groaned. Terry understood.

He sat up and leaned toward his hostess. "Laura, honey, I don't want to mess things up for you," he said. "I just love Jack, too, that's all. You know that. You always knew it, even before you got married."

"I know you nearly killed him," she said quietly.

"No fair exaggerating."

"No fair, h.e.l.l. It's true!" she exclaimed.

"It's not either!" he said with good-humored indignation, as if they were playing parlor games. "Is it, Jack?"

But Jack, his eyes on Laura now, kept silent.

"Well," Terry admitted, "I was pretty b.i.t.c.hy sometimes. But so was he. And no matter what, we loved each other. Even at the end, when he kicked me out."

"If he hadn't kicked you out that night he might have killed himself with liquor."

"I don't believe it"

Laura threw her hands up, exasperated. "What more do you want from Jack, Terry?" she said. "What do you want from me?"

Terry grinned. "Equal time," he said, nodding at the bedroom.

Jack laughed weakly and Laura got up and stamped her foot. "Terry, Jack loves you. I know that and I'll have to live with it. But that love is destructive, and I'm asking you now to get out of our lives forever and never come back to hurt us again." She said it with quiet intensity.

"Before dinner?" he asked.

"Oh, G.o.d!" Laura spluttered at the ceiling.

Terry lighted a cigarette for Jack, who had fumbled one from the box on the c.o.c.ktail table, and told Laura, "I can't go away forever. Any more than you could desert Beebo forever. I love him. I'm stuck with him."

"I've left Beebo," she said.

"You'll go back," he told her serenely. "It was that kind of affair."

Laura held on to her self control as her last and dearest possession. She didn't dare to lose it. 'Take me seriously, Terry," she begged, almost in a whisper. "Please let us live together in peace."

Terry shrugged. He didn't like to get serious. "What are you going to do the rest of your lives?" he asked them. "Live like a couple of old maids in your fancy little apartment? Pretend you're both straight? What a kick!" He said it sarcastically but without malice. "A kick like that won't last long, you know."

"It's not a kick. It's something we both need and want," Laura said earnestly.

"Nuts," Terry said amiably. "What you both need and want is a few parties. Get out and camp. Do you good."

"Sure," Laura said sharply. "So you make love to Jack and he goes out and drinks a fifth of whiskey, after eight months on the wagon. Was that what you had in mind?"

Terry made a little grimace of perplexity. "That was pretty silly," he told Jack. "Now she won't let me see you at all."

"He needs me more than he needs you, Terry," Laura said.

"Yeah? But he wants me more." He grinned at her. "You've got to admit that counts for something," he told her. "I can give him something you can't give him." He looked so smug, so sure of himself, that Laura, with her heart in her throat, decided to pull her rabbit out of the hat. If it didn't work, she would have to give up.

"And I can give him something you can't give him," she said, her voice low and tense. "A child."

There was a long stunned silence. Jack and Terry both stared at herJack with a slight smile of amazement and Terry with open-mouthed dismay.

"A child!" Terry blurted finally. "Don't tell me! I wasn't born yesterday."

"It's true," Laura spat at him. "And I'm not going to have any empty-headed, pretty-faced queers hanging around my baby! Not even you, Terry Fleming."

Terry turned to gape at Jack, his mouth still ajar. "She's kidding!" he exclaimed. "Isn't she?"

Jack paused slightly and then shook his head, and the strange little smile on his face widened. It was brilliant, he thought. Cruel, to himself even more than to Terry, because it wasn't true. But clever.

Terry stood up, bewildered, and walked around the living room. Laura watched him, her face flushed, sweating with expectation. Finally Terry turned to look at them. Jack, raising himself on one elbow, watched him.

Do you still want me to have dinner with you?" he asked wryly, and Laura saw hesitation in his look and felt a first small hope.

She didn't know what to say. But she was thinking, I've made Jack a man in his eyes now. He's thinking, Jack can do what he could never do himself. He's thinking, at least if I was wrong about him ruining Jack's life, I'm right about ruining a baby's. He knows d.a.m.n well he could do that. Or does he?

But at least he was thinking, His lovely young face was screwed up with the effort.

Suddenly he said to Laura, as if expecting to trip her up, "When's it due? The kid?"

"November," she said. She had antic.i.p.ated him.

"Well!" His face brightened. "If it isn't due till November, we've got a long time to play around." And it was Jack he looked at now.

But Laura jumped at him, bristling. "I don't want an alcoholic for a husband!" she said. "I don't want my baby to have an alcoholic for a father. A drunken, miserable, tormented man who doesn't know which s.e.x he is, who has to chase around after a thoughtless character like you all night. I don't want to lose my husband, Terry. Not to you or any other gay boy in the world. You'd ruin his health and make him wild inside of a month."

She was crying, though she didn't realise it, and her cheeks were flaming. Terry stared at her for some moments in surprised silence. And then he looked at Jack, who was still propped on one arm, taking it all in with an inscrutable smile.

"Well..." Terry said again, almost diffidently. Apparently he believed they were having a child. He looked to Jack for moral support. "Is that the way you feel too, honey?" he asked.

"Why certainly," Jack said cheerfully, incongruously. "Can't you tell? Whatever she says, goes." A soft note of hysteria sounded in his voice.