George felt glad he had asked her out. She was intelligent and warm, and he was beginning to think how pleasant it would be to kiss her. The thought of Maria became dim in his mind.

They went to an Italian restaurant. Cindy confessed that she loved all kinds of pasta. They had tagliatelle with mushrooms, then veal escalopes in a sherry sauce.

She had a degree from Georgetown University, but she told him she was working as a secretary to a black insurance broker. “Girls get hired as secretaries, even after college,” she said. “I’d like to do government work. I know people think it’s dull, but Washington runs this whole country. Unfortunately, the government hires mostly white people for the important jobs.”

“That’s true.”

“How did you break in?”

“Bobby Kennedy wanted a black face on his team, to make him look sincere about civil rights.”

“So you’re a symbol.”

“I was, at the start. It’s better now.”

After dinner they went to see Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor in Alfred Hitchcock’s latest film, The Birds. During the scary scenes, Cindy clung to George in a way he found delightful.

On the way out, they disagreed amiably about the ending of the movie. Cindy hated it. “I was so disappointed!” she said. “I was looking forward to the explanation.”

George shrugged. “Not everything in life has an explanation.”

“Yes, it does, but sometimes we just don’t know it.”

They went to the bar of the Fairfax Hotel for a nightcap. He ordered Scotch and she had a daiquiri. Her silver cross caught his eye. “Is that just jewelry, or something more?” he said.

“Something more,” she replied. “It makes me feel safe.”

“Safe from . . . anything in particular?”

“No. It just guards me, generally.”

George was skeptical. “You don’t believe that.”

“Why not?”

“Uh . . . I don’t want to offend you, if you’re sincere, but it seems superstitious to me.”

“I thought you were religious. You go to church, don’t you?”

“I go with my mother because it’s important to her, and I love her. To make her happy, I’ll sing hymns and listen to prayers and hear a sermon, all of which seem to me to be just . . . mumbo jumbo.”

“Don’t you believe in God?”

“I think there’s probably a controlling intelligence in the universe, a being that decided the rules, such as E equals MC squared, and the value of pi. But that being isn’t likely to care whether we sing its praise or not, I doubt whether its decisions can be manipulated by praying to a statue of the Virgin Mary, and I don’t believe it will organize special treatment for you on account of what you have around your neck.”

“Oh.”

He saw that he had shocked her. He realized he had been arguing as if at a White House meeting, where the issues were too important for anyone to care about other people’s feelings. “I probably shouldn’t be so direct,” he said. “Are you offended?”