"That he sounded exactly like the men they kept putting into jail after Watergate. He says Mr. Hazen has a porous vocabulary, whatever that means."

"Half the time these days," Strand said, "I don't know what Jimmy means when he talks to me, either."

"He's a good boy," Leslie said defensively.

"I didn't say he wasn't a good boy. He's just using another dictionary from the one I'm used to."

"Don't you think our fathers felt very much the same thing about us when we were Jimmy's age?"

"Tell me about the generations, mother," Strand said, teasing her, "about how they come and they go."

"You can make fun of me if you like. Still..." Leslie left the thought unspoken. "All in all, I thought it was an interesting evening."

"Downstairs," Strand said, "Hazen said he enjoyed it, every minute of it."

"Poor man," Leslie said. She kissed Strand's throat. "Now let's really go to sleep."

3.

"I ENVY YOU YOUR family, sir," a voice had said, sometime in the past. Years ago? Last night? "Beyond all measure." Who had said it? To whom had it been addressed? What family?

Strand was reading in the bedroom. Saturday morning was a busy time for Leslie, with children coming in for lessons every half hour from eight to one, and Strand locked himself away, so he wouldn't hear the artless matinal tinkling. He read idly. He kept two books on his bedside table that he liked to dip into at odd moments-Prescott's Conquest of Mexico and Conquest of Peru. Himself an armchair historian, whose farthest trips afield for material were occasional visits to the reading room of the 42nd Street public library, he especially treasured the eloquent accounts written by the blind scholar immured in Cambridge, of desperate deeds performed in far-off places by indomitable men who had changed the face of the planet with a handful of swords and a meager troop of horse, with never a thought of the verdict of history that would be brought in centuries later by the inhabitants of the continent of guilt they left behind them.

For other reasons he also admired the works of Samuel Eliot Morison, who had fought in naval wars, sailed the ocean routes of Columbus and Magellan and written about primitive voyages and bloody battles in such vigorous, manly prose. If he had been ambitious he might have aspired to be a Prescott. The life of a man like Morison, he admitted sadly to himself, would have been beyond him.

When he was young he had hoped to make his name as a historian, but when his father died during Strand's last year in college, leaving behind him a derelict electric appliance repair shop and an ailing wife and a pitifully small amount of insurance, Strand had to give up whatever plans he had had for continuing in graduate school. The next best thing, he had made himself believe, was to get a license to teach history in high school, where he would at least be working in a field he was devoted to and could make a living for himself and his mother at the same time. By the time his mother died he was already married and Eleanor had been born, so now he read history and taught it but did not write it. If he had his moments of regret, he had his compensating moments of contentment. Rereading a well-loved book on a quiet Saturday morning was just such a moment.

He had had breakfast early with Leslie and Caroline, half-listening to their chatter as he scanned the Times over his coffee. Caroline reported that she had heard Jimmy come in about three. Jimmy's door was still closed and Caroline guessed that her brother would make an appearance around noon. Caroline seemed none the worse for her experience of the night before. She had been dressed for tennis at the breakfast table, and had gone off to play with an old wooden racquet and had promised to come home before dark.

On Saturday mornings Mrs. Curtis came to clean and answer the doorbell and let the children in as they arrived for their lessons. Occasionally, Leslie would ask Strand to come into the living room and listen to a little boy or girl who had suddenly become a pianist. But this morning he had not been invited to one of these impromptu concerts, so Strand understood that no particular talent was on display and that Leslie would be edgy by lunchtime.

He was reading, for the fifteenth time, the account of Cortez's battle on the causeway leading to the city of Mexico when the telephone rang. He went down the hallway and picked it up. It was Eleanor. "How's Caroline?" she asked.

"No visible damage," Strand said.

"I've been doing some homework," Eleanor said. "On Mr. Russell Wrenn Hazen. I looked in Who's Who. Caroline brought home a whale last night."

"What do you mean, a whale?"

"A big one," said Eleanor. "He's the head man of one of the largest law firms in Wall Street, founded by his father, now dead. He's on the boards of about a dozen giant corporations, starting with oil and going down to agrobusiness and chemicals, he's a trustee of his old school, he has one of the biggest collections of Impressionist and modern art in America, begun by his father and added to by sonny boy, he is mentioned for his connections with museums and the opera and is noted for his philanthropic interests. He played hockey for Yale back in the dark ages, is on the National Olympic Committee and belongs to a lot of clubs, including the Racquet and Century and Union Club. Married to a Social Register lady, nee Katherine Woodbine. Three children, grown, two daughters and a son. Want any more?"

"That will do," Strand said.

"Who's Who doesn't mention his bicycle riding," Eleanor said. "I suppose that'll be in the next edition. At dinner I thought he wasn't just one of the run-of-the-mill Central Park exercise nuts."

"I gathered he was a man of some importance," Strand said. "Still, to his credit, he didn't advertise."

"He doesn't have to. Do you know anybody else in Who's Who?"

"Not offhand," Strand said. "Well, there's an old professor of your mother's at Juilliard.... That's about it. Did he say anything to you in the taxi?"

"He wanted to know why I said I slaved when he was putting us all through the third degree."

"What did you tell him?"

"I said it was just a figure of speech. He said he hoped to see more of us. He struck me as being a lonely man, although after reading about him it doesn't seem possible."

"I had the impression," Strand said, "that you didn't like him very much."

"It wasn't that, exactly," Eleanor said. She sounded uncertain, as though she still hadn't made up her mind about Hazen. "I just sensed a gap between him and us. No, not a gap. An abyss. Didn't you?"

Strand laughed. "I'm not really an abyss man," he said. "No. Are we going to see you over the weekend?"

"Sorry, I'm off to Connecticut for a spot of rural luxury. I'll call on Monday."

"Have a good time," Strand said, as he hung up. He wondered where Eleanor had found a copy of Who's Who. She hadn't sounded as though she was in a library and he knew she didn't have one in her apartment. Probably she had been calling from her young man's place. He tried not to think of what she had been doing the night before, after she had dropped Hazen. He shook his head. Her life.

As he went back to the bedroom and picked up Prescott again he wondered, without envy, how a man could divide himself into as many parts as Hazen, by Eleanor's report, must manage, and why he did so.

He started reading again, but there was a knock on the door. It was Mrs. Curtis. "The man who had dinner here last night is here," she said. "He looks something awful, all the colors of the rainbow, but he has some flowers for Mrs. Strand and he said if you weren't busy he'd like to see you for a minute. He wants his bicycle but Alexander's not around this morning."

"When will Alexander be back?" Strand asked, as he put on a worn old tweed jacket, his Saturday costume, and slipped his feet into moccasins.

"Not for an hour. He had to go downtown for a piece for the boiler."

Strand went along the long dark hallway past Jimmy's closed door to the foyer. There were some prints on the walls, and some old posters for one-man shows, as well as a flower piece of Leslie's. Not mentioned in Who's Who, Strand thought. Hazen was standing holding a big bouquet of flowers wrapped in paper. Another long paper-wrapped package was lying on the table in the foyer.

"Good morning, sir," Hazen said. "I hope I'm not disturbing you."

"Good morning," Strand said as they shook hands. "Nobody disturbs me on Saturday morning. It's my time for doing nothing." Hazen did look awful, as Mrs. Curtis had said. He had a wool ski hat pulled over the bandage on his head, making his head look grotesquely large, and his face was swollen and misshapen, the skin below the pad of bandage on his cheek a sickly mixture of yellow, purple and green. His eyes, though, were clear and bright and he was neatly dressed in a beautifully fitting dark gray suit, his shoes glittering in a mahogany shine.

"How did the night go?" Strand asked.

"It passed." Hazen shrugged. "And your daughter?"

"Off playing tennis. She was gay as a bird at breakfast."

"The resilience of youth," Hazen said.

He says the most banal things, Strand thought, as though they are pearly-new gems of observation.

"I bought a few flowers for your wife," Hazen said, moving the bouquet with a little rustling of paper. "For her kind ministrations."

"She's busy now with a lesson," Strand said.

"I hear," Hazen said. He made no comment on the quality of what he heard.

"She'll be most pleased. Mrs. Curtis," Strand said, "would you please put Mr. Hazen's flowers in water."

Mrs. Curtis took the bouquet from Hazen and went back into the kitchen.

"I have something for Caroline." Hazen indicated the paper-wrapped package on the table. "A new racquet. Made by the Head people. I noticed that the racquet she demolished in my defense was a Head."

"It wasn't necessary," Strand said, "but I'm sure she'll be delighted."

"The gut is in the package," Hazen said. "I wasn't sure just how tight she would like it strung. All she has to do is take it into the tennis shop at Saks and they'll do it for her."

"You've had a busy morning, Mr. Hazen," Strand said. "It's not yet eleven o'clock and you've already been to Saks and the florist's."

"I'm an early riser," Hazen said. "Another thing I inherited from my father."

"I know something about your father," Strand said.

"Oh, you do," said Hazen, flatly. "I'm not surprised."

"My daughter, Eleanor, just called. She looked you up in Who's Who."

"Oh, she did? I didn't think she was that interested in me."

"She said there wasn't anything in it about your bicycle riding."

Hazen smiled. "We'll keep that part of my biography to ourselves, shall we? I'm not particularly proud of last night."

"I don't see anything much that you could have done about it," Strand said.

"I could have stayed home," Hazen said. "I was foolish, considering the lateness of the hour. Still..." His face brightened. "It gave me the opportunity of meeting you and your charming family. I really am taking too much of your time. I had just planned to leave the racquet and the flowers here in the hall and pick up my bicycle. But the superintendent's door didn't answer and I..."

"He's away," Strand said. "If you wait here for a moment I'll ask Mrs. Curtis where the key for the cellar is."

"Thank you," Hazen said, "if it's not too much trouble."

Mrs. Curtis was putting the bouquet into a big vase in the kitchen.

"Pretty, aren't they?" Strand said. He had only the vaguest notion about flowers. He was sure about roses and chrysanthemums but after that he was usually at a loss for floral identification.

"For what they cost," Mrs. Curtis said, jabbing harshly at the blossoms, "you could feed your family for a week."

"Mr. Hazen would like to get his bicycle out of the cellar," Strand said, ignoring Mrs. Curtis's comment on the household's economic situation. "Do you know where Alexander keeps the key?"

"You go into the boiler room," Mrs. Curtis said, "it's open and there's a shelf on the right-hand side, high up. At the near corner you'll find the key. That man going to ride his machine through the park in his state?"

"I imagine so."

"He'll scare the animals in the zoo right out of their cages." Mrs. Curtis jabbed again at the flowers. "Mind, put the key back when you're finished with it."

"I will," Strand said. He went back into the foyer, where Hazen was still standing, a small frown on his face as he listened to a scale that was being played with considerable inaccuracy in the living room. Strand smiled. "Usually, it's better than that," he said. "That obviously is not one of Leslie's star pupils."

"Still, it must be rewarding," Hazen said, correcting his frown. "All those young people..." His voice trailed off.

"I know where the key is in the cellar," Strand said. "I'll take you down..."

"No need," Hazen said. "I've bothered you enough. I have my man downstairs. If you'll just tell me where the key is..."

"I was just going down to take a little walk, anyway," Strand said, although the idea hadn't occurred to him until that moment. He opened the door and followed Hazen to the elevator. On the ground floor, there was a tall man of about thirty-five dressed in corduroy pants and a sweater. Hazen introduced him as one of his secretaries, Mr. Conroy. He was an unathletic-looking man, with a gray complexion, the color, Strand thought, of ashes leeched by years of acid rain. The clothes he was wearing seemed incongruously informal on him. Strand wondered what Hazen's other secretaries looked like and how many he had and whether they made up in beauty and charm for Conroy's depressing appearance.

They went down the steps to the boiler room and Strand found the key. He opened the cellar door and Conroy, with quick, efficient movements, took hold of the bicycle. Strand offered to help get it up the stairs, but Hazen said, impatiently, "Conroy can handle it himself, can't you, Conroy?"

"Of course, sir," Conroy said.

Strand locked the door and put the key back in the boiler room. Conroy was waiting for the two men when they came out of the building into the sunlight.

"Just leave it with the doorman," Hazen said.

"Yes, sir," Conroy said and mounted the bicycle.

"Until Monday morning," Hazen said.

"Yes, sir," Conroy said. "If you need me over the weekend, my answering service will get me."

"If I need you," Hazen said.

He and Strand watched the man ride off. "I don't imagine he belongs to any union," Strand said, "your Mr. Conroy. On tap for work on the weekends."

"Able fellow," Hazen said. "He's paid enough to put in an extra hour here and there. And he's not married. That helps." He chuckled. "If you don't mind, perhaps we could go a little way on your walk together."

"Which way would you like to go?" Strand asked. "Into the park?"

Hazen shook his head, smiling. "Not just yet, please. The memories are still rather fresh. Perhaps toward Lincoln Center...?"

"Fine," Strand said, as they began to walk. "I always like to look at it. It gives me some hope that in the long run the city will not be totally destroyed."

They walked comfortably in silence for a while. "I've been wondering about your name," Strand said.

"Why?"

"There's a William Hazen whose name is a footnote to American military history."

"Really?" Hazen sounded interested. "What did he do?"

"He went to West Point, then fought the Indians and during the Civil War he was a colonel under Sherman in Georgia at the head of a regiment of Ohio volunteers and captured Fort McAllister."