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so, he didn’t mind. He still regarded Bianca as a conquest, and her husband’s visit increased her trophy value. But Joseph Primero did not look like a man who would willingly subject
himself to the humiliation of a wife run amok. And he underwrote the life Bianca led. She had no money of her own. Why didn’t Primero divorce her?
    Bianca laughed. “You don’t understand us Catholics. But tell me what he said.”
    She wanted a blow-by-blow account of her husband’s visit, rubbing her hands eagerly as he told her.
    â€œWhy do you hate him so?”
    She sobered instantly and looked at Dudley with narrowed eyes. “You don’t know him as I do. Besides, it is he who hates me.”
    â€œHe has an odd way of showing it.”
    â€œI wish you had been harder on him. Imagine, coming to your office and asking you to leave me alone. The man has no pride.”
    â€œMaybe he loves you.”
    â€œHe doesn’t know what love is. Oh, I would like to punish him.”
    That became a leit-motif of their postcoital conversations. Sometimes Dudley thought that Bianca made love as a long-distance punishment of her husband.
    â€œHis books,” she said, “that is where he is vulnerable.”
    She would lie back and speak dreamily of stealing from her husband’s collection; she knew the things he particularly valued. Dudley became uneasy when she seemed to be casting him in the role of thief.

6
    â€œLARRY,” DOLORES SAID BRIGHTLY, “this is Dudley Fyte.”
    Larry had expected to talk to Dolores alone and was put off by the presence of the man to whom she had just introduced him, presumably the man she intended to marry in Sacred Heart Basilica. He took the extended hand, what else could he do?
    â€œI’ve told Dudley about us.”
    â€œWhy don’t we all have a drink,” Dudley suggested. And off they went across the lobby and out the door of the building. On the flight to Minneapolis, Larry had rehearsed what he would say to Dolores, convincing himself that he had the upper moral hand. After all, reserving a date for their wedding had been his idea. As he remembered it, Dolores had not been all that excited by the idea. Besides, how could she have the same emotional attachment to Notre Dame that he, after seven years on campus, had?
    The bar was crowded. There was only one unoccupied stool and of course Dolores took that, with himself and Dudley standing attendance on her. Larry felt at a disadvantage. How could he even bring up the topic of June 17? But it was Dolores who did so.
    â€œI wish now I’d let you know I was claiming the reservation.”
    â€œYou should have.” Of course he had not called her before going to the Basilica office to claim it himself.
    â€œWell, it was as much mine as yours, wasn’t it?”
    â€œWas it? I thought it was my idea to make it in the first place.”

    â€œThat isn’t how I remember it.”
    Dudley reached for the drinks that had been brought, handing one to Dolores and taking his own. Larry’s beer remained on the bar. He reached for it as Dudley proposed a toast. “I suppose we should offer one another mutual congratulations.”
    Larry lifted his glass but before drinking said, “Did you go to Notre Dame?”
    â€œChicago.”
    â€œWell then. My fiancée is a domer.”
    â€œHow nice,” Dolores said.
    â€œThat makes it two to one.”
    â€œLarry, everything is arranged.”
    â€œYou’re going to have to rearrange then.” He drank now as if to punctuate the point.
    â€œI don’t think so. Father Rocca confirmed the date.”
    â€œHe was under the mistaken impression that you and I were going to get married.”
    â€œI think the bride has the call in these matters.”
    â€œI don’t see that.”
    â€œLarry, I understand how you feel. I know how I would have felt if I found you had gotten there before me. But