‘Is that why he’s working so hard to suppress the truth about this blight? How serious it is, and how wide it’s spread?’

Della blushed. ‘I wasn’t aware he’d done anything like that.’

‘Wouldn’t you, if you were in his position? Let’s face it, the moment the public realises how many crops have been destroyed, they’re not going to worry about Ed Hardesty and Walter Klugman and all the other poor jugheads of Kingman County, are they? They’re going to start worrying about themselves.’

Della said, ‘I think this blight’s spread much faster than Shearson expected it to. He thought he’d have two or three clear weeks at least. Now it looks like a matter of days. But he’s collected something like eleven million dollars already, and if you do well on the television on Saturday – well, that could jump to twenty or thirty million.’

Ed set down his glass. ‘He’s got eleven million already?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, that explains a lot,’ said Ed.

Della leaned over towards him. ‘Don’t think too badly of Shearson, Ed. He’s all kinds of things, but he’s also a very professional and dedicated politician.’

Ed found himself looking into Della’s eyes, very closely. ‘You’re an interesting woman,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know they bred them as interesting as you in Oklahoma.’

‘We’re not all hayseeds,’ she said. ‘And my mother was Miss Oklahoma City, nineteen fifty-one.’

‘You’re aiming higher than that, huh?’

‘I could be.’

They had known what was going to happen from the moment Ed had invited her to stay over. All through dinner their conversation had been leading inevitably to this one moment. Ursula had helped it to happen, too, by her active approval of everything that Della had said and done. She had smiled at Della with a toothy expression that could only be interpreted one way: wouldn’t I have loved to have you as a daughter-in-law?

Ed said, ‘You must be tired.’

‘Not too tired,’ said Della, throatily.

Ed stood up, walked across to the drinks cabinet, and poured himself another brandy. ‘Like you said,’ he told her, ‘I’m a married man with a young daughter of six.’

‘I’m not forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do,’ Della said.

He turned, and looked at her, and then gave her a wry smile. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I know you’re not. But you must have guessed where my marriage is at, right now. And at times like this, I guess everybody’s looking for a little reassurance, and a little consolation, and maybe a little excitement, too.’

‘You think I’m exciting? Miss Kansas City Herald-Examiner, as was? Shearson Jones’s private messenger lady?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘What about your mother?’

‘She takes enough sleeping-pills to knock out a rhinoceros. Apart from that, she likes you.’

‘She likes me that much?’