“Biggest luncheon crowd we’ve ever had,” Ott said.

“Best show too,” Bridie said, crunching a hard roll. “Look at their faces. Kind of sizing things up. I shouldn’t wonder if they’re beginning to get onto Dave and his crowd.”

“Even the dumb ones know that Sid Kleet is Dave’s hatchet man,” Ott observed. “They don’t know yet that Distelhorst is a Senate chore boy.” He turned toward the silent girl beside him. “And how do you like Alaska, Miss—uh—Storm?” It was a familiar and timeworn dialogue between them.

“What language do they speak in Alaska! Do Alaska people live in igloos?” She glanced speculatively at the alert faces all around her. “At least they respect the General’s war record even if he has swapped Mars for Mammon.”

“Oh, well, no war going on just now, to speak of, that is,” Bridie observed, generously. “I suppose he’s got his family to keep going, same as everybody else. Where’re those girls got to, anyway, with lunch, I’d like to know. Here it’s quarter to one. What’ll the guests think!”

Ott looked at Chris. “The crowd’s puzzled about Bay Husack. They can’t figure out what he’s doing here. And that girl.”

Bridie leaned toward Decker. “You going to eat your roll, Chris? I’m starved, up since six and only tea and a slice of whole wheat. Do you know what I think? I don’t believe that’s her name at all, it sounds to me like one of those made-up names the girls have in the movies. You know—Doris Dean and June Breeze. Dina Drake me foot!”

Now it became obvious that Distelhorst, nervously engaged with pencil and paper, was signaling Ott Decker. “Excuse me girls. The Fish-and-Wildlife expert is sending out distress signals.”

Immediately Bridie shifted into Decker’s chair. She abandoned the well-buttered roll to concentrate on the girl beside her.

“Look, Chris, you going to actually go through with this?”

The lovely serious face sparkled now with mischief and gaiety. “I can hardly wait to see the mink coat floundering around in a ten-foot snowbank in Oogruk.”

“You mean you think they’ll go up there, this time of year!”

“Bay’s supposed to see Alaska, isn’t he? Isn’t that the plot of the piece?”

Bridie turned her head toward the Speakers’ Table, as though to confirm her opinion of the handsome sulky young man and the arrogant girl seated there, side by side.

“Good-looking and rich and no sissy—I don’t know how you turned him down in the first place.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I bet there isn’t a girl in the whole Northwest wouldn’t grab him. If I was your own ma I wouldn’t know what to advise you, looking at him now.”

“Haven’t I had too much advice all my life?”

“I guess you have, at that. Czar pulling you one way, Thor the other. One yelling gee, the other haw, and me yawping in between. Look what it’s come to, now.”

“It’s silly. Like one of those old movies they’re digging up on television. Handsome young millionaire, beautiful adventuress, innocent maiden, grabby old villains. It’s so old-fashioned you can’t believe it.”