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“I’d just as soon get ’em started on Fred, or something like that,” he added. “Ricky sounds pretty juvenile.”
    Georgine smiled up at him. She did like these teenagers, so nice and easy without being fresh; they simply acted their age. And what a handsome young sprig this was; he must resemble his father.
    Ricky Devlin, having impressed her with his maturity, now suddenly looked about twelve years old. “Are you typing the Professor’s stuff, Mrs. Wyeth?” he demanded, his eyes shining. “Gee, listen, is it really a Death Ray?”
    â€œRicky,” Georgine said, “between us, I don’t understand a word of it.”
    His face fell. Probably he was still secretly devoted to Superman comic books. He was about to say something more when a clear, languid young voice sounded at the door, and his head involuntarily turned. “Hi, Claris,” he said, elaborately offhand.
    â€œHi, Rick,” the slim creature answered, lowering extravagant lashes over hazel eyes. She might have been sixteen or twenty-two; there was just one word to describe the red-gold hair in its long bob, the little swing of the skirts, the soft mouth as brilliant with lipstick as an enameled cherry on a hat: luscious , Georgine thought. What was her name, Claris Frey? Well, Claris was a dish, and no mistake. Somehow, Georgine’s generalities about young people didn’t quite fit, here. The child looked as if she were trying to be older than her age, an attitude which Georgine thought had died with the post-war flapper.
    Just behind her came a tall, graying man with curiously intent eyes and a gentle, deprecatory smile. He might at one time have resembled the gorgeous infant he had fathered, but something had drawn deep lines of patience in his face, pulling it into a brooding mask.
    â€œClaris,” Mrs. Gillespie called, “bring your dad over and introduce him. This is Mrs. Wyeth, who’s going to be with us a few weeks.”
    â€œJust in the daytime,” Georgine explained, as the man crossed the room with a graceful light step, and held out a hand with a smudge of green paint near the wrist. Claris had stood directly in front of him, speaking softly but with great precision, and Georgine realized that this must be the “stone deef” gentleman who had not heard his own doorbell; but it scarcely prepared her for the loud bellow with which he greeted her. “I am glad to welcome a new neighbor,” bawled Peter Frey, into a sudden silence.
    Georgine was horrified to hear herself shouting in return, though she knew it was useless. She wasn’t moving into the Road, it was only by chance that she—in fact, she’d rung Mr. Frey’s bell that very afternoon—
    His eyes followed her lips with desperate concentration, and halfway through her stumbling speech he began to shake his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, this time almost inaudibly. “I started too late to learn lip-reading. You have to go very slowly for me—or maybe you’d write it?”
    He was actually pulling out a pocket pad when Georgine’s violent head-shakings stopped him. She was crimson and smiling with embarrassment. Peter Frey also smiled, slowly and painfully. He made an abortive gesture, bowed, and left her, standing with his back to the room and looking out the window.
    Mrs. Gillespie at once began to talk airily about something else. “Aren’t we a funny lot, up here? I’d always wanted to live in one of these hill houses, with a view, you know, and where there were nice people so we could sort of neighbor back and forth.” She cast a dubious glance at Mrs. Devlin, and lowered her voice. “They don’t seem to do it as much as I’d thought, though. We’ve been here for nearly a year and a half, longer than Roy Hollister or the Freys, but I never got to know any of ’em except Roy until these meetings began. My brother