At two-thirty on a weekday Lake Bluff was still. Just south of the Great Lakes Naval Training Station on Lake Michigan, the town is a tiny pocket of wealth. To be sure, there are small lots and eight-room ranch houses, but imposing mansions predominate. A weak spring sun shone on nascent lawns and the trees sporting their first pale green frills.

I turned south on Green Bay Road and meandered around until I found Harbor Road. As I suspected, it overlooked the lake. I passed an outsize red brick dwelling sprawled on a huge lot, perhaps ten acres, with tennis courts visible through the budding shrubs—they’d be hidden by midsummer when the plants were in full foliage. Three lots later I came to the Phillipses.

Theirs was not an imposing mansion, but the setting was beautiful. As I wrenched the Chevette up the drive I could see Lake Michigan unfold behind the house. It was a two-story frame structure, topped with those rough shingles people think imitate thatching. Painted white, with a silvery trim around the windows, it looked as if it might have ten rooms or so—a big place to keep up, but an energetic person could do it without help if she (or he) didn’t work outside the home.

A dark blue Olds 88 sedan, new model, rested outside the attached three-car garage. It looked as if the lady of the house might be in.

I rang the front bell. After a wait the door opened. A woman in her early forties, dark hair cut expensively to fall around her ears, stood there in a simple shirtwaist—Massandrea, it looked like. A good two hundred fifty dollars at Charles A. Stevens. Even though it was Monday afternoon at home, her makeup was perfect, ready for any unexpected visitors. Diamond drops hung from gold filigree attached to her ears.

She looked at me coldly. “Yes?”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Phillips. I’m Ellen Edwards with Tri-State Research. We’re doing a survey of the wives of important corporate executives and I wanted to talk to you. Do you have a few minutes this afternoon, or could we set a time when it would be convenient?”

She looked at me unblinkingly for a few minutes. “Who sent you?”

“Tri-State did. Oh, you mean how did we get your name? By surveying the biggest companies in the Chicago area—or divisions of big companies like Eudora Grain—and getting the names of their top men.”

“Is this going to be published someplace?”

“We won’t use your name, Mrs. Phillips. We’re talking to five hundred women and we’ll just do some composite profiles.”