Jasper was planning a series of articles about his travels for St. Julian’s News, but he also had a higher ambition. Before leaving London, he had spoken to Barry Pugh and asked if the Daily Echo might be interested to see what he wrote. “Yeah, sure, if you come across something, you know, special,” Pugh had said without enthusiasm. Last week in Detroit, Jasper had got an interview with Smokey Robinson, lead singer of the Miracles, and had sent the article to the Echo by express post. He reckoned it should have got there by now. He had given the Dewars’ number, but Pugh had not phoned. Jasper was still hopeful, though, and he would call Pugh today.

He was staying at the Dewar family apartment in Washington. It was a big place in a swanky building a few blocks from the White House. “My grandfather Cameron Dewar bought this before the First World War,” Woody Dewar explained to Jasper at the breakfast table. “Both he and my father were senators.”

A colored maid called Miss Betsy poured orange juice for Jasper and asked if he would like some eggs. “No, thanks, just coffee,” he said. “I’m meeting a family friend for breakfast in an hour.”

Jasper had met the Dewars at the house in Great Peter Street during the year the family had spent in London. He had not been close to them except, briefly, to Beep, but all the same they had welcomed him to their home, more than a year later, with open-handed hospitality. Like the Williamses, they were casually generous, especially toward young people. Lloyd and Daisy were always happy to accommodate stray teenagers for a night or a week—or, in Jasper’s case, several years. The Dewars seemed the same. “It’s so kind of you to let me stay here,” Jasper said to Bella.

“Oh, you’re welcome, it’s nothing,” she said, and she meant it.

Jasper turned to Woody. “I assume you’ll be photographing today’s civil rights march for Life magazine?”

“That’s right,” said Woody. “I’ll mingle with the crowd, taking discreet candid shots with a small thirty-five-millimeter camera. Someone else will do the essential formal pictures of the celebrities on the platform.”

He was dressed casually, in chinos and a short-sleeved shirt, but all the same it would be difficult for such a tall man to be inconspicuous. However, Woody’s revealing news photographs were world famous. “I’m familiar with your work, as is everyone who’s interested in journalism,” said Jasper.

“Does any particular subject attract you?” Woody asked. “Crime, politics, war?”

“No. I’d be happy to cover everything—as you seem to.”

“I’m interested in faces. Whatever the story—a funeral, a football game, a murder investigation—I photograph faces.”

“What do you expect today?”

“No one knows. Martin Luther King is predicting a hundred thousand people. If he gets that many, it will be the biggest civil rights march ever. We all hope it will be happy and peaceful, but we’re not counting on it. Look what happened in Birmingham.”