“I’ll think about what you said about Norma. You win that much. It took enough doing, didn’t it? You’re pretty cool. You gave me all that soft-soaping bullshit about her and yourself and all the while you knew that if you didn’t have it your way through that, you’d drag this out. Now I’ll think about it. I don’t believe it, but I’ll think about it.” He set his coat on his shoulders. “If you don’t like it and start thinking you can go further, like talking to Karen, you’ll find out how tough I can be.”

“I won’t try that.” He looked upset.

“See that you don’t. You didn’t know me as well as you thought, and what he told you about her was even more wrong—”

“I knew that. I knew that when he told me.”

“Forget it. Get it out of your mind. I don’t want to hear you speak of it again.” Leland turned for the door.

“Wait. Norma will expect you to mention something. I wouldn’t bring it up if I hadn’t already told her.”

“What is that?”

“When I told you about the way I’ve been living, I wasn’t exaggerating. A man is coming in to open the rest of the house and on Friday I’m going to have some people in. It’s something we used to do a lot. I told Norma that I would invite you.”

Leland shook his head in wonder. “I’ll have to speak to my wife. I’ve asked her to come down for the weekend, but she hasn’t made up her mind. She doesn’t like Port Smith anymore.”

“Yes. Well, do what you want. I’m sorry about what happened this evening.”

“Thanks for the beer.” Leland stopped at the door and tapped the autographed portrait of Herbert A. Davis. He couldn’t resist. “How well do you know this jerk?”

Roberts laughed. “He happens to be a good friend of mine.”

Leland was more than even, but that didn’t matter. “Another? You really know how to pick them, don’t you?”

“Norma?” Except for a small lamp lit over the kitchen table, the lower floor of the house was dark.

“I’m upstairs, Joe. Leave that light on, please.”

He had to go through the dining room, a formal contemporary room with a finely oiled walnut table, to get to the foyer and the wide, curved staircase to the second floor. She had been right in what she had told him yesterday; the lines of the outside of the house made it seem smaller than it really was. She had good taste. It was possible to clutter the place and she had not done it. She had wanted to make a quiet, comfortable home and she had done that.