“No. Sandra and I were rooming together in Salt Lake City. She met Morgan on that Honolulu trip and never even came back for her things. I sent them on to her at Kansas City. Then, after a while, Morgan left and came here, and I drifted back East and had a job in Kansas City, but I wasn’t there while Morgan was and—at least I don’t think I was. I didn’t keep up with Sandra. Morgan, you see, goes to places, stays there for a while, and then gets kicked out. Things get hot for him—well, like they are here, only this is the worst it’s ever been.”

The big German woman came to beam down at us and ask if we wanted any more coffee. Alma said, “No.” I said, “Yes.” She took my coffee pot away to fill it, and I said to Alma, “I’m doing about as much talking as you are. If you want to tell me things, why not go ahead and tell them?”

“What,” she asked, “did you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“I used to be simply crazy about Sandra,” Alma said. “I guess I still am, but marriage has changed her a lot, all right, that and the sort of life she’s lived with Morgan Birks.” She laughed nervously and said, “I guess you think it’s a scream. Morgan blaming me for the things he doesn’t like in Sandra, and I claiming that Morgan has been responsible for a change in Sandra. I—”

“For God’s sake,” I said, “tell me the truth. What’s the matter with Sandra? Is she on the make?”

“You couldn’t blame her if she was,” Alma said hotly. “Morgan never has been true to her. Within the first few months after her marriage, she found out he was keeping a mistress. It’s been like that ever since.”

“The same girl?” I asked.

“No. He couldn’t even be true to a mistress.”

“Well, according to your ideas,” I said, “that’s because Sandra didn’t make a home for him, didn’t—”

“Donald,” she interrupted, “don’t be like that. Now stop it.”

The German woman brought my coffee. I said, “All right, I’m stopped, but you do think it’s about six of one and a half a dozen of the other, don’t you?”

“Morgan threw Sandra in with a wild crowd,” she said. “He associates with gamblers and men of that type, and occasionally there’d be some politician he’d want Sandra to play up to. He’d keep telling her, ‘My God, don’t be so stiff. Go ahead and use a little sex appeal on this guy. I want him to like you. He’s important to us.’ He was after Sandra all the time to be sort of a glamour girl.”