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her head slightly towards me.
    'Tell me about you and Louren Sturvesant,' she said. 'I would like to understand about that.'
    The question took me by surprise, and I was silent for a moment. She opened her eyes.
    'I'm sorry, Ben. You don't have to--'
    'No,' I answered quickly. 'I'd like to talk about it. You see, I think you were wrong about him. I don't think you can apply ordinary standards to them - the Sturvesants. Louren and his father, when he was alive, that is. My own father worked for them. He died of a broken heart a year after my mother. Mr Sturvesant had heard of my academic record, and of course my father had been a loyal employee. There are a few of us, the Sturvesant orphans. We have nothing but the best. I went to Michaelhouse, the same school as Louren. A Jew at a church school, and a cripple at that - you can imagine how it was. Small boys are such utterly merciless little monsters, Louren dragged me out of the urinal where four of them were trying to drown me. He beat the daylights out of them, and after, that I was his charge. I have been ever since. He finances this Institute, every penny of it. At first it was something just for me, but little by little he has become more and more involved It's his hobby and my life - you will be surprised how knowledgeable he is. He loves this land, just as you and I do. He is caught up in its history and future more than you or I will ever be-' I broke off, for she was staring at me in a way that seemed to pierce my soul.
    'You love him, Ben, don't you?'
    I blushed then, and dropped my eyes, 'How do you mean that--'
    'Oh, for God's sake, Ben,' she interrupted impatiently. 'I don't mean queer. You just proved the opposite. But I mean love, in the biblical sense.'
    'He has been father, protector, benefactor and friend to me. The only friend I've ever had. Yes, you could say I love him.'
    She reached up and touched my cheek.
    'I'll try to like him. For your sake.'
    It was still dark when we drove in through the gates of Grand Central Airport. Sal was huddled into her coat, silent and withdrawn. I was light-headed and brittle-feeling from a night of love and talk without sleep. There were floodlights picking out the private Sturvesant hangar at the east end of the runway, and as we approached I saw Louren's Ferrari parked in his reserved bay, and beside it another half-dozen late model saloons gleaming in the floods.
    'Oh God.' I groaned. 'He's got the whole team with him.'
    I parked beside the Ferrari, and Sal and I began unloading our equipment from the boot. She picked up her easel and slung it over her shoulder, then with a huge folder of parchment in one hand and a box of paints in the other she ducked through the wicket gate into the hangar. I should have gone with her, of course, but I was so absorbed in checking my luggage that it was three or four minutes before I followed her. By then it was too late.
    As I stepped through the low aperture into the brightly lit hangar, my stomach churned with alarm. The gleaming sharklike silhouette of the Lear jet formed a backdrop for a tension-charged tableau. Seven of Louren's bright young men clad in the regulation casual garb - smartly cut safari suits and fleece-lined car coats - stood in a discreet circle about the two protagonists.
    Louren Sturvesant very rarely loses his temper, and when he does it is only after severe and prolonged provocation. However, in less than two minutes Sally Senator had managed to achieve what many experts before her had never accomplished. Louren was in a towering, shaking, tight-lipped rage, which had his seven BYM awed and slack-mouthed.
    Sally had dropped her load of equipment on the concrete floor and was standing with clenched fists on her hips and bright explosions of colour burning in her cheeks, trading Louren glare for glare.
    'Dr Kazin told me I could come.'
    'I don't care if the goddam King of Woody England told you that you could come. I'm telling you that the plane is full -and