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softly weeping: Reinhart went across to the sofa and held her. “Daddy,” she said, “how could I ever leave you?”
    “Darling, you won’t ever have to.”
    “Well, that was the reason, anyway.”
    “The reason for what, darling?” Reinhart’s own eyes were moist. You could not call a life a failure when you had produced a child like this.
    “The reason why we broke up, Daddy. Grace says she can’t go on unless we live together.”
    Reinhart nodded. For an instant he held Winona as tightly as before, and then he relaxed his grasp. After a moment he stood up.
    He spoke as lovingly as ever. “You wanted me to see that Grace was a fine person. You’re certainly right about that, dear. I think the idea was a pretty good one on the part of two very decent women. And listen here, Winona, when you get a good friend in life, you want to hang on to her.”
    Winona’s fine eyes began to widen. “Dad, I hope you’re not thinking exclusively of my welfare. You always do that, you know, and I won’t put up with any kind of sacrifice on your part. I love you, and I won’t have it!”
    “Oh, I’m not being excessively noble,” said Reinhart. “I think you are so fond of Grace that maybe you’d hate me, without even realizing it, if I came between you.”
    Her expression was anguished. “Don’t say anything like that, ever! Didn’t I just send her away?”
    “Take my word for it, Winona. I’m a veteran in the contradictory forces of the heart.”
    Winona began to weep again. “You know, I was telling Grace—it will be much harder with him than if he were the usual bigot. Damn it, Daddy, can’t you make it easier by being even a little nasty?” She was now grinning slightly through her tears.
    “Don’t talk like that,” Reinhart said furiously. “Talk about not making it easy on somebody!” He cracked his fingers. “Do you know why I’m such a tolerant fellow, Winona? Because I’m too chauvinist, that’s why! I come from a generation of men who weren’t concerned that much with women. When I was young I was obsessed with whether I was virile enough. We young men were all like that: it was the constant preoccupation in the Army, for example. Even our humor dealt with it incessantly: fruit, fairy, swish, pansy, fag, the words themselves were enough to provoke a guffaw. Then I’ll tell you something else: if we did hear of a girl who preferred her own kind, we assumed she was some poor little bitch who had simply never met the right man.”
    Winona, who had never looked more beautiful, uttered one flat, mirthless sound: “Ha.”
    “And then,” said Reinhart, “when I lived long enough to be absolutely certain of myself, I had become the father of a son, and my great worry in the late Sixties was that your brother might turn qu—gay.”
    “Blaine?” Winona asked in derisive disbelief.
    “Well, he’s grown pretty square by now, but in those days he dabbled in all the trendy things, radicalism, et cetera.” Reinhart flung up his hands. “But look, you don’t want to hear all this patronizing stuff. You stick to your friend, Winona. That’s my advice.”
    She was shaking her head at him. “But, Daddy, what will become of you?”
    Smiling with all the saintliness he could contrive, Reinhart did not hear the question. He was wondering how long he could conceal from this precious person, whom he loved with all his heart, that she would be the death of him.

CHAPTER 2
    O F COURSE REINHART SOON admitted to himself that he was exaggerating in his inner sense of high tragedy. For one, nobody had expired of shame in a good century. Then, sexual deviation had not been regarded by the enlightened as a disgrace since at least the fifth century B.C. and in our time even the mobile vulgus had succumbed to a tolerance of variants. Nowadays Gay Pride spectacles were commonplace in our major cities. (Good heavens, must he someday salute as Winona and Grace Greenwood marched by?) That it would always be a joke