The Third Revelation Read Online Free PDF Page B

wanted to change the name of the company from Empedocles to Sedes Sapientiae.
    The board had balked.
    â€œWhat’s it mean?” they’d asked Hannan.
    â€œSeat of Wisdom.”
    Blank looks were rampant around the table. The businessmen in the room hadn’t a clue what the words meant, much less why Hannan wanted to use them.
    Laura said, “It’s one of the titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
    The members of the board observed a moment of stunned silence. Then they all began talking at once. After the general hubbub had died down, the voice of reason finally got a word in.
    Ray said, “Nate, it would cause no end of problems.” He began to outline them, from the loss of name recognition to the expense of a campaign to establish the new image, to the difficulty of changing everything in the company from logos to stationery. Long before Ray was through, Hannan put up his hand.
    â€œAll right, all right.”
    He gave up the idea of a name change. He settled for having a replica of the grotto at Lourdes erected behind the administration building.
    Ray had once said that Nate was a eunuch for the kingdom of mammon’s sake, his ascetic, frantically paced life carrying him from one financial triumph to another. He seemed completely unaware that there were such things as women in the world.
    â€œAn occupational hazard,” Laura said.
    â€œOh, I don’t know,” Ray said. They’d been lovers for two years by then.
    At the time, she and Ray had been enjoying a rare respite from the demands of their positions, off to Vermont to see the autumn leaves. They stopped at a small inn for dinner and then decided to stay. Ray went to the desk, and it was only when they went upstairs that she realized he had not taken a separate room for her.
    â€œOkay?” They stood at the door of the room, and suddenly she felt the inevitability of what they were doing. It was as if they had to prove that they were flesh and blood, unlike Hannan. They both knew all the reasons why this should not be happening, but the rules and prohibitions seemed faded and remote, dead as autumn leaves. She took the key and opened the door and they went in.
    And so it had started. Perhaps at the beginning she had imagined that it was all a prelude to marriage, but the stolen moments seemed all there was likely to be. What made it acceptable was that the two of them agonized about it, apologizing to one another, the whole affair the better because they felt so bad about it. But mainly neither of them gave any sustained thought to the nature of their relationship. Times together were oases of stolen peace.
    The twinkle in his eye now made it clear that, unlike Hannan, he was no ascetic.
    â€œNo time for that. I’ve got too much on my plate to even think about it,” Laura went on. “You know, sometimes I feel we’re both married to Nate.”
    â€œHey, I’m not that kind of fella.”
    â€œYou know what I mean.”
    He knew what she meant. They were, each in their different ways, footnotes to the life of Ignatius Hannan, at his beck and call. They were paid astronomical salaries for the privilege. And it was a privilege. There was something predestined about Nate’s success, and the rising tide of his fortune lifted all boats, and none higher than theirs. Nate seemed unaware of their relationship.
    â€œYou make me feel guilty,” he had said to Laura.
    â€œIt’s a woman’s role.”
    â€œNo, I mean it. This is no life for a woman.”
    This was after he returned to the religion of his fathers and decided that business was no career for a woman.
    â€œRead Chesterton. What’s Wrong With the World ,” he urged.
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œRead the book.”
    â€œAre you firing me?”
    He looked surprised. “I couldn’t get along without you.”
    â€œI’ll bet you say that to all the girls you can’t get along