Christ, he thought, fragile in his comfortable, blanketed chair, what is going to happen to me, what is going to happen to us all?

PART TWO.

1.

HE STOOD AT THE window of the Hotel Crillon and looked out at the obelisk, the rearing stone horses set in the noble expanse of the Place de la Concorde. In the milky sunlight with the Seine and the Chamber of Deputies in the distance it was almost empty, because, as Hazen had explained when they arrived, everybody left Paris in August. His being there seemed almost miraculous to Strand. When Hazen had told them that he had pressing business in Europe and that a company for which he worked was lending him their corporate Lear jet to cross the ocean and had proposed that since there was room and he detested traveling alone the Strands and Linda Roberts accompanying him, he had immediately said, "Impossible." He had suggested to Leslie that she make the trip on her own, but Leslie had said she wouldn't go without him. He had tried to plead illness, but he had been walking a mile a day on the beach and the truth was that he was fit as a man his age who had been at death's door only six weeks before had a right to feel and Dr. Caldwell had said the trip would do him good. The munificence of Hazen's offer had embarrassed him but Leslie was so painfully anxious to go that he had felt that it would be cruel to deprive her of the experience. Eleanor, too, had said that it was sinful to reject the gifts that a benevolent fate, in the form of Russell Hazen, was offering him. Women, he had thought, accept favors more naturally than men. He had said yes reluctantly, but now, after a week in Paris, strolling slowly along the streets whose names he had known from his reading since he was a young man and sitting in the sidewalk cafes and making his way slowly through Figaro and Le Monde, pleased that he still half-remembered his college French, he was grateful that Leslie had insisted.

Actually, there had been no urgent reason to keep him in America for the moment. Mr. Babcock had visited him and, as Hazen had promised, had been a likable, diffident, rather dusty small man. The interview had been tactfully brief, and after he had outlined the nature of Strand's duties Strand was relieved to see that after all his years of teaching history there was no need to prepare his courses. Leslie had gone to Dunberry to inspect the house they were to live in and pronounced it livable. They needed a car to get to town but Hazen had volunteered the old station wagon and Mr. Ketley had given her lessons in driving it. She was a nervous driver, but she had passed the test at the first attempt and now had her license.

Although from her gallery and her social life Linda knew, as she said, shoals of French, she had advised them that for their first short visit they'd have a better time just seeing what the French had produced and collected during the centuries rather than grappling with the race itself. Taking her advice as wise counsel, they had kept to themselves and escaped the rigors of not quite bilingual socializing. As Linda said, they had been spared the disappointment of comparing what the French had accomplished with what the French had become.

His own sightseeing was limited, as Dr. Caldwell had warned him not to overdo things. His trying to keep up with Leslie and Linda Roberts in their tireless raids on museums, galleries and churches certainly wouldn't have met with Dr. Caldwell's approval. He had quickly fallen into a happy and comfortable routine, spending most of the days by himself. He slept late, waking in the beautifully appointed large room to breakfast with Leslie. When she went out to meet Linda Roberts he would go back to bed and sleep for an hour or so. Then, shaved and bathed, he would walk idly, looking at the windows on the Rue du Faubourg St.-Honore or the Rue de la Paix, admiring the lush displays of the shops, but with no itch of acquisition. He would meet with the ladies for lunch at a bistro, listening with amused detachment to their descriptions of the treasures they had viewed that morning, then go back to the hotel for a siesta, unhurried, content to let Paris bustle on without him for a while, before going out again to sit on an open terrasse with the newspapers, lulled by the sound of a language he could not quite understand, half-reading, half-watching, with a small smile on his lips, the lively show of pedestrians, approving, without lust, of the pretty, well-turned-out women and girls who passed by, and intrigued by the Japanese tourists who like himself were in Paris for the moment.

Hazen himself appeared only at odd times. He flew to a different city almost every day, Vienna, Madrid, Zurich, Munich, Brussels, trying to disentangle, as he put it, multinational chaos. "You won't miss me," he had said to Strand. "Linda knows Paris better than most Frenchmen and you couldn't have a better guide."

Among the things that Linda Roberts knew about Paris was where to find the best restaurants that were open in August, and for the first time since his twentieth birthday Strand found himself gaining weight and going to bed nightly a little drunk on French wine.

Hazen had invited Caroline to accompany them, but Caroline with an unexpected newfound seriousness had said she couldn't interrupt her track training. When she wasn't at the small animal clinic, she worked out for hours every day with the track coach of the East Hampton high school and had already improved her time in the hundred and was working on the two twenty. "I don't dare go," she had said when she was told she was included in Hazen's invitation. "I have the rest of my life to see Europe, but this is the summer I have to get down to at least ten-five. I couldn't stand the thought of showing up in Arizona and being an absolute flop and knowing everybody was asking, 'What is that fat horse doing in the race?'" Hazen had agreed with her and assured Strand that the Ketleys would take perfect care of her. Mr. Ketley had become interested in her new career and had found a book on diet for athletes from which his wife prepared special meals for her.

So it was a man at peace with himself, soberly tasting foreign joys at age fifty, who stood in the late afternoon sunlight at the window of the large room gazing out at the heart of a country he had loved from afar and never hoped to visit.

Hazen arrived that evening from Madrid in time to take them all to dinner at an elegant small restaurant that offered a Burgundian cuisine and the accompanying wines. He was in a holiday mood and joked with the maitre d'htel about how the prices of La Tache had gone up since he had been there last. Strand didn't see the wine list but from the figures on the carte he could guess that the meal for the four of them would cost well over two hundred dollars. When he had been installed in the grandiose room in the hotel overlooking the Place de la Concorde, he had protested mildly to Hazen about his extravagance. "Nonsense, man," Hazen had said. "A taste of luxury is part of the education of any intelligent human being. It teaches him how unnecessary it is."

Easy enough to say, Strand had thought, for a man who has inherited a house with sixteen bedrooms.

Linda Roberts, who had overheard the exchange, said to him later, "Don't thwart his Santa Claus complex. He gets very cross when he thinks people are trying to keep him from distributing largesse to us peasants."

The "us" was diplomatically inclusive, Strand thought, and was typical of Linda's sweetness of nature. His gratitude toward her grew daily as he saw how she devoted all her time to making Leslie's visit as rewarding as possible and how Leslie's face glowed when they returned from an afternoon at the galleries or a visit to the studio of a young painter who, according to Linda, was sure to make a name for himself in the future. "If a person couldn't paint here," she said, her enthusiasm for the city overcoming her usually well-developed critical sense, "he couldn't paint anywhere."

During the meal of jambon persille and entrecte marchand de vin and a hot pear tart, Linda had said, "I've crossed the ocean forty-five times and this is the best time of all." She raised her glass. "I think we should drink a toast to the group that has made it possible."

So they all drank happily to themselves.

Hazen had drunk copiously and by the time they were at their coffee was expansive and jovial. "I have an idea," he said. "I've got three days before I have to fly to Saudi Arabia and I propose we make the most of it. Leslie, have you ever been to the Loire valley?"

"I've barely been to New Haven," Leslie said, flushed with the wine. She had bought a new dress because Linda had said that a girl couldn't just pass through Paris but had to have something to show for it, and it was very becoming, deep plum-colored and close-fitting and cut daringly low in front, displaying her Hampton honey-colored skin and the fetching outline of her bosom. "My slinky outfit," she had described it to Strand as she dressed. "I hope you're not shocked."

"I am ravished," Strand had said loyally, not exaggerating by much.

"Why don't we hire a car tomorrow morning and go take a look at the chteaus and drink some Vouvray?" Hazen said. "And if they're still putting on the Son et Lumiere shows, good old Allen can brush up on his French history."

"At Chenonceaux," Strand said, showing off a little, "Catherine de Medici used to have her prisoners tortured in the courtyard for the delectation of the ladies and gentlemen who happened to be her guests."

"The bloody French," Hazen said.

"From what I've read," said. Strand, "they've stopped the practice. At least as a public amusement."

"Now they do it for profit. To Americans. In business and politics. But give them a century or two," Hazen said, "and they'll probably get around to prisoners again. Anyway, they won't be doing it in the next three days, unless the government happens to change or the Communists take over Orleans. What do you say, can we all be ready by ten o'clock in the morning?"

"Russell," Linda said, "you've been gadding around so much, I think you could stand a day or two of just sitting in one place. Why don't we all fly down to Nice and go to my place in Mougins? I hear the weather is divine just now and the garden is at its best."

Hazen scowled. "Linda," he said, with surprising harshness, "Leslie and Allen haven't flown three thousand miles just to sit in a damned garden. They can sit in my garden all they want when they get back. Anyway, I told the pilots they could have three days off. They need the rest."

"We could always fly down to Nice on Air France," Linda said, "like the rest of the human race. And the Loire valley will be jammed with tourists. We'll be lucky to find hotel rooms."

"Let me worry about that," Hazen said, his voice rising.

"It'd be a shame if Leslie and Allen went back home without seeing my little place in Mougins," Linda persisted. "They must be getting tired of hotels by now. I know I am. There's more to France than hotels."

"It's a shame that they have to go back to America without seeing Verdun and Mont-St.-Michel and the cathedral in Rouen and the Lascaux cave and a million other things," Hazen said loudly. "But they only have two weeks. Christ, you're a stubborn woman, Linda."

"Leslie, Allen." Linda turned toward them. "What do you want to do?"

Leslie glanced quickly at Strand, looking for a signal. Strand would have been happier just to remain in Paris doing exactly what he had done since he had arrived there. But the exasperation in Hazen's voice was not to be ignored. "I'm sure," he said tactfully, "that Leslie would love to see your house, Linda. But I know she'd regret missing the chance to see the chteaus."

Leslie gave him a quick, grateful smile.

"There," Hazen said with satisfaction, "it's settled. And no more insane arguing, Linda. If there's one thing I hate it's arguing when you're on a holiday. I get enough arguments at the office."

"Do you ever lose, Russell?" Linda asked gently.

"No." Hazen laughed, his good spirits restored.

"I'm glad I don't work for you," Linda said.

"So am I." He reached for her hand and kissed it graciously. "So-ten o'clock tomorrow morning. Country clothes."

"Leslie," Linda said, "you know what we can do when we get rid of this brute-we can let him fly his toy plane back to America and we can stay on and go down to Mougins on our own and fly back home in our own good time."

"That would be wonderful," Leslie said. "But I have to go home and start getting ready to move. We have to be at Dunberry by September tenth. Maybe next year. That would be something to look forward to, wouldn't it, Allen?"

"I'm looking forward to it already," Strand said. If there will be a next year, he thought, as he said it.

He lay in his bed watching Leslie, in her nightgown, brushing her hair in front of the dressing table mirror. "It was a nice evening," he said, "wasn't it?"

"Better than nice," she said. "Like all the evenings. Except for that little clash of wills between Russell and Linda."

He lay in silence for a moment. "Tell me," he said, "was I right in saying that you'd prefer going down to the Loire instead of to Linda's place?"

"You were right in saying it," she said, her arm rising and falling in smooth even strokes, "but it wasn't the truth. I'm gorged for the moment with sightseeing. A few days in a garden in the south would have made a perfect ending to our trip."

"Then why didn't you say so?"

Leslie laughed softly. "Darling," she said, "it's his holiday."

"I guess we really didn't have any choice."

"Not for a minute." She stopped brushing her hair and stared at herself in the mirror. "Do you think I look younger than I did two weeks ago?"

"Years," he said.

"I think so, too." She resumed brushing her hair. "Still," she said, "I would like to look at least once at the Mediterranean."

"Next time we come to Europe," he said, "we pay our own way."

"Next time," she said softly. "Who knows if there'll be a next time?"

He was disturbed by the echo of his own thought. Vaguely, he felt that somehow tonight they both needed comforting and he almost asked her to come into his bed so that he could sleep with his arms around her. But he didn't speak. He didn't know whether he should be proud of his prudence or despise himself for his cowardice. He closed his eyes and went to sleep to the silken sound of his wife brushing her hair in the shadowy room.

There was a surprise for Strand and Leslie and Linda Roberts when they came down from their adjoining rooms to the lobby the next morning at ten o'clock. Hazen was waiting for them with a striking-looking blonde, who was holding a smart black attache case. She was dressed severely in a simple tweed suit and low-heeled shoes. "This is Madame Harcourt." He said the name in the French manner, leaving off the final t. "She's from our office here and she's driving us down. She's going to Saudi Arabia with me and we have some business to work out before we leave. Don't worry, you don't have to talk French to her. Her mother's English." He spoke hurriedly, as though a little embarrassed by Mrs. Harcourt's unannounced appearance.

"Mr. Hazen always says that right off, whenever he introduces me to Americans," the woman said, smiling. The businesslike severity of her face disappeared, and her voice was low, pleasant, easy, and her accent was clipped but not obnoxiously British. "It's as though he doesn't want to be accused, even for an instant, of favoring the French."

"She's a lawyer," Hazen said. "I deal with French lawyers only out of dire necessity. Well, the luggage is in the car. Shall we take off?" He started out of the lobby with Mrs. Harcourt and the others following.

"Quite an improvement on good old Conroy, wouldn't you say?" Strand whispered.

"Cosmetically, anyway," Leslie said.

A big black Cadillac was waiting for them at the door and Mrs. Harcourt got in on the driver's side, with Hazen beside her. "Mrs. Harcourt will drive," Hazen said. "I hate to drive and I'd have to jump out of the car before we reached the Pont St.-Cloud if I let Linda behind the wheel and I know Allen hasn't a license and Leslie's too new at the sport for French roads. You all comfortable back there?" Although he had said country clothes, he was dressed in a dark suit and a white shirt, tight around the collar, and a sober tie, making Strand wonder what Hazen would wear to a funeral. Even with the weight he had put on in Paris, his own collar, Strand felt uncomfortably, left an unfashionable gap at his Adam's apple.

"We're fine," Strand said. "Couldn't be better."

Mrs. Harcourt turned on the ignition and the car started off. She drove deftly and confidently through the light traffic.

It was a beautiful morning, sunny but not too warm, and Strand leaned back contentedly, enjoying looking at the buildings of Paris and then at the green rolling country they were in when they passed through the tunnel under the Seine and sped south.

They stopped in Chartres and went into the cathedral. Strand would have liked years of slow study to absorb it, but Hazen was visibly annoyed at a loud group of German tourists who were being addressed, in their own language, at a decibel count suitable for a political meeting, by their guide.

"Let's get out of here," Hazen growled, after they had been there for only ten minutes. "I'm hungry." He refused to have lunch in Chartres, though. "I recommend the cathedral, but not the food." He said there was a wonderful place just off the highway about a half hour away.

They had a fine lunch out in the open air at a table set in a garden and Hazen was jovial again and ordered two bottles of Montrachet to go with the trout, while making a good-humored point of not allowing Mrs. Harcourt to drink any of it because she was doing the driving and the cargo of the Cadillac was precious. She listened politely but hardly spoke while the others talked. She sat quietly, erectly, almost stiffly, as though the holiday atmosphere did not include her and she remained conscious that she was an employee and her employer was present. She locked the car carefully because she had left the attache case on the front seat But as Strand and Leslie were walking back to the car after the others, Leslie said, "It's a fake."

"What's a fake?" Strand asked, puzzled.

"The junior employee and the big boss act," Leslie said. "For our benefit."

"Oh, Leslie."

"You don't have to be a detective to guess what business they have to work out in the Loire valley before they take off for Saudi Arabia."

"I don't believe you," Strand said, slightly shocked by the hostility he sensed in his wife's voice. "And even if you're right, it's no business of ours."

"I just don't like people to think they can pull the wool over my eyes, that's all," Leslie said, her lips tight. "Madame Harcourt! They're a cool pair, those two."

Strand was glad when they reached the car. It was a conversation he had no wish to continue.

They all had rooms on the same floor in the hotel in Tours and Strand noticed the malicious gleam in Leslie's eyes when she saw that their room and Linda's were at one end of the corridor and Hazen's and that of Mrs. Harcourt, again carrying the attache case, at the other.

"What do you think she's got in that case she lugs around everywhere?" Leslie asked.

"Industrial secrets," Strand said. "Russell told me he's negotiating for a company that's putting in a bid to construct an atomic plant in Saudi Arabia."

"My guess is that it's a douche bag," Leslie said.

"Good Lord, Leslie!"

Leslie merely giggled as she went through the doorway of their room.

Leslie continued to be reserved and cool toward the woman the next day when they visited Chambord and Chenonceaux, but if either Hazen or Mrs. Harcourt noticed it, they didn't show it. But Leslie made no secret of her delight in the glorious piles of masonry and told Hazen, as they stood in the formal garden looking at the gallery of Chenonceaux built on stone columns over the Cher River, "This moment alone is worth the trip." Then she kissed his cheek.

Hazen smiled happily. "I told you this would beat sitting and sweating in a garden while being eaten up by mosquitoes." He glared at Linda. "Next time I hope you'll go where I tell you to without my having to get out a subpoena for you."

"The mosquitoes only come out after it rains," Linda said with dignity, "and it hasn't rained all summer."

"There it starts again. You know you're lying." Hazen appealed to the others. "Will you listen to that? Only after it rains!"

"Please," Leslie said, "please. Let peace and harmony reign. Stop teasing the poor man, Linda."

"He has such a low boiling point," Linda said, smiling, "sometimes I can't resist, just to see how fast the steam starts to spout."

"Low boiling point! Mrs. Harcourt, you've known me for many years and you've seen me tried in important matters, sorely tried in important matters, sorely tried, by low dealing and gross incompetence, and outright chicanery. Have you ever seen me blow up?" By now Hazen, too, was amused.

"You have always been a model of decorum, Mr. Hazen," Mrs. Harcourt said demurely, "in my presence."

"Now you're doing it, too," Hazen said and then joined in the general laughter.

But back in the room in the hotel, getting ready for dinner, Leslie had forgotten the comradely laughter of the afternoon. "I heard something about that Madame Harcourt this afternoon," she said.

"What?" Strand sighed inwardly. He had grown to like the woman. She seemed modest and intelligent and cheerful and her presence seemed to lighten Hazen's moods and make him a more agreeable companion.

"There is no Monsieur Harcourt," Leslie said. "She's divorced."

"How did you find out?"

"Linda told me. The last time she and Russell were in Paris together the junior attorney was there all the time, too. Divorced."

"Divorce isn't a crime. Most of the people anyone knows are divorced."

"I just thought you'd be interested, that's all. You seem so interested in the lady I thought you might be interested in her marital status, too."