“Why, Chris!” they always exclaimed. “But this is lovely!” As though they had expected a pine table and iron stove.

Dina, entering the room (wool dinner dress, deep crimson), said the expected, “Chris! But this is lovely!”

Bay stood a moment in the doorway, quite quiet. He looked about the soft golden room. “Whoever did this loves you.”

“He still does, I hope. Grampa Thor Storm. He did it while I was at school in Seattle. Isn’t it strange! As though he knew—–”

“He knew you better than any of us.”

“Here it was when I came back. Waiting for me. Grampa Czar wouldn’t speak to me.… You’ve met Mrs. Ballantyne … Mr. and Mrs. Paul Barnett, they publish the Northern Light—with Grampa Thor, of course … Ross Guildenstern you’ve met, too … oh, of course, you met them all at the airport … Mrs. Gannon and Judge Gannon … he looks more like a juvenile delinquent than a judge, doesn’t he?… Isabel and Matt Berg, they have the most wonderful bookstore in Alaska, everything from Kinsey to Toynbee … Ott Decker of course … Professor Derwent of our Baranof College … Mrs. Cale Korf and Cale Korf, Arctic Circle Air Lines Chief, you’re going up in one of his planes tomorrow … Mead Haskell, he’s a flying missionary … Mr. and Mrs. Nate Berman, Nate’s our new City Planner we’re going to be a mass of palm-lined boulevards and statues someday, you’ll see.…”

Bridie, determined to get things off to a good start, said, “That’s a handsome red you got there, Miss Drake, it’s seldom you see a real true crimson, it’s the French dye does it.”

Dina glanced about her. “I hope the things I’ve brought aren’t too formal. I thought with Bay so much in the public eye—–”

Bridie threw her good intentions to the wind. “Oh, they expect Dave Husack’s secretary to be a snappy dresser. Anyway, you can’t be too dressy for Alaskans. We dress for dinner on the planes.”

Dinner was not a success. Caribou steaks and baked potatoes are not fare to be eaten buffet style. Bridie’s prediction about the caribou had turned out to be true. The beets were somewhat woody, the strawberries gigantic but watery, Ott Decker spilled red wine on the golden carpet and for a moment the tears came to his eyes, or seemed to as Chris tried to reassure him. He said, “It had to be me. It couldn’t be Husack or even Ross. It had to be me. Mother’s helper.”

“Salt,” Chris ordered, cheerfully. “We’ll pour a lot of salt on it, it makes red-wine spots vanish. Don’t ask me why. Think no more of it, Ott dear.” He wished she wouldn’t call him Ott dear. She didn’t call Ross or that Husack Ross dear Bay dear. In public, anyway.

An evening of talk, Chris thought wildly, was what I’d planned, so genteel. Talk about what! Bay had sat next her, a plate teetered precariously on a small side table.