“I’m hungry is all.”

“I bet you are. Well, eat on it. Whatever you don’t will go bad and get fed to your dogs.”

“They’ll have to stand in line.”

“Boy, they already are. Your attention grows more divided by the minute.”

“I haven’t forgot why I’m here.”

“That’s right.” Mebane speared a chunk of squash, lifted it to examine and set it back down. Took up his biscuit and broke off a crumb-edge with his bright corn-kernel teeth. “You’re the one after the truth.”

The meat did not need a knife but came apart under the fork tines. It was not anything that he thought of as beef but he figured he could get close to the bottom of the tinful anyway. He said, “What happened, that you never got married?”

“Who says I never did?” Mebane now peering down his flung-up nose at Foster.

Foster looked around at the discord of the room. “Nobody. I just assumed—”

“Which you shouldn’t do. Young sir after the truth. No I never got married. What woman would want a one-armed man?” Stabbing green beans one at a time and lifting them to his mouth, eating the food as if angry with it.

“I don’t know,” Foster said. “I’d imagine there might be some. Depending on the woman.” Then he added, “Depending on the man, too.”

“Well, there,” Mebane said. “In one step you arrived at the conclusion of every busybody I ever met in my life. Which is to put the blame for it on me. As if it’s a lack just because everybody else does it. Or most everybody. There’s one-two old maids whose theories are the most severe concerning me. But mostly it’s a simple thing. Regardless of how two people start out, from what I can see, and the view is pretty far from these years, for most it comes down to the little things and the little things for me are ten steps for everybody else’s two or three. And I think anybody patient enough to put up with me that way for years and years would have to be stupid enough that I would hate her. Maybe that’s just an excuse. Maybe I never found the right person. Maybe it just was not meant for me. Maybe I’m not the marrying sort of person. It looks that way, don’t it?”

“I guess so,” Foster said. He laid his knife and fork on the side of his plate and let his hands rest loose on the table edge. Upright in his chair, looking at Mebane next to him. “Are you a queer?”

Mebane chewed on biscuit. His eyes on Foster. Some of the anger paled, some of the wry twist lifted in his eyes. He swallowed and said, “You’re a regular man of the world ain’t you?”

Foster shrugged. “It’s not anything to me. I told you my father worked those White Mountain resorts. Saw every kind and stripe. Warned me of it too.”