Now she smiled too, but sadly, clasping her fingers together over the handle of her bag. This prevented him from taking her hand, and he merely nodded his farewell. She had not spoken at all—he had gone quite a way down the corridor before that occurred to her. He was out of sight by the time the elevator arrived.

“Thirty-seven,” she announced, getting in.

Someone touched her shoulder. “So good to see you, Miss Kingslake.” It was Mr. Quashie from Archives.

“Oh, Mr. Quashie.”

Mr. Quashie, wearing a long, light-colored robe and scrolling a document lightly between his palms, moved up to stand beside her. “I suppose you were at the meeting?”

“I was, yes.”

“I thought the D.-G. looked tired.” Mr. Quashie stepped aside to let someone get out. “But then—I hadn’t seen him since he addressed the staff last Human Dignity Day.”

“Nor had I.”

“What a job he has. One wonders how anyone stands it. No private life at all. What did you think of the speech, by the way?”

“Quite good. And you?”

“Oh—here’s my floor.” Mr. Quashie glanced up at the row of lighted numbers. “I didn’t hear much of it. We were busy in the office, and I stayed to answer the phones. Getting off, please. Getting off. And then I took the wrong staircase in the conference building. So I only came in at the very end. I was just in time to hear about the flowers, you know. About how we need more flowers of joy.”

THE MEETING

Just before the meeting, which was fixed for three-thirty, Flinders took a walk in the Organization’s rose garden. This garden was set in a protected angle of the buildings and looked toward the river. Seagulls—for the river was in reality part of an estuary—swooped over Flinders’s head as he crunched up and down the pebbled paths between beds of wintry spikes tagged “Queen Frederika” or “Perfect Peace” or “British Grenadier.” About him, plane trees scored the sky and frozen lawns rolled down to the cold river. With the exception of two uniformed guards and a statue ferociously engaged in beating swords into ploughshares, Flinders was the only human figure in sight. The grounds were closed to the public at this season, and the staff were sealed in their narrow cells, intent on the Organization’s business.