“Swoboda,” Mr. Rodriguez said again, “I’m sure you know that I have the highest opinion of your work.” He was looking not at Swoboda but at his own right hand, which was now executing more complicated fingering. “And, I may say, of your character.” He then interpolated, “The two cannot, in any case, be separated.”

Swoboda did not speak. He observed Rodriguez carefully. He was interested in human nature and his intuition told him that he was getting an important demonstration of it.

“You must be aware,” Rodriguez went on, now looking briefly at Swoboda out of his fine blue eyes, “that the question of your promotion was due to come before the present meeting of the Promotions and Probations Board. And that my endorsement was required.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Quite so. Well, Swoboda—” Here Rodriguez stopped. Swoboda, watching him, wondered what word should be used to describe his expression. He decided that the most fitting word was “desperate.” Rodriguez then continued. “I did in fact write the recommendation on your case. And I may say that it was unequivocal. It was, indeed, wholehearted. However—”

“However?” Swoboda inquired gently, since silence seemed likely to descend.

“However—some questions were subsequently raised. I mean, after I had drafted the report on you. It was felt that, since you had joined this department so recently, others here might feel—ah—supplanted in the matter of your promotion. I do not say that I agree with this view, but it was presented to me as a possible source of grievance.… Miss—er—Graine did in fact raise the matter with Mr. Pylos, or so I understand, and he felt … Then, too, an official of Personnel—Mr. Bekkus, in whose office you formerly worked—seems to have said…” Rodriguez-O’Hearn’s voice trailed away. He summoned it back and added more firmly, even defiantly, “And so, taking all these things into account, I did not send my recommendation.”

“I see, sir.”

“Swoboda,” said Mr. Rodriguez-O’Hearn—and Swoboda now concluded that the word for his expression was “hopeless”—“this doesn’t mean anything more than postponement. You realize that, of course.”

“I see, sir,” Swoboda repeated. He was still looking at Rodriguez-O’Hearn—at his expression, his rapidly heaving chest, his intricately moving fingers. A sensation was welling up within Swoboda as he looked, and this sensation, though he struggled against it, held him fast and threatened to overcome him.

“In fact I think I can safely say that at the next meeting of the Board—that is, the one after the present one—the one that meets in June—this is confidential, of course…”