“You’re getting a rough time from me, Joe, and I appear to be powerless to control it. I want to assure you that you’ve been getting the effects of accidents. No, Phyllis wouldn’t be my patient. If someone we know comes to us for therapy, we refer them to someone else. Joe, I want to tell you why it wasn’t possible for me to try to stop her as forcefully as I should have for your sake.” Leland heard Norma collecting the dishes in the living room. The sounds were sharp and solitary in the house, and Roberts’ voice moved farther away. The light went out in the kitchen, then in the living room. Roberts was saying something about not discouraging Phyllis, that her relationship with her therapist was delicate, but Leland was just half listening. Norma appeared at the door, turning out the last light. Her eyes caught Leland’s with a steady, almost expressionless gaze. She had his cigarettes, which she had picked up from the coffee table. Roberts said, “The meaning becomes obscure at a certain point, but I am a doctor and my first responsibility is to the sick. You happened to get the worst of it.”

“I understand, Wendell. Don’t give it a thought.”

Norma smiled: she had been listening. She gave him the cigarettes, hesitated, then touched his lapel for the second time this evening. She held her hand there. Her eyes became heavy again. Without looking at him she turned to the stairs and started up. He fixed his attention somewhere else. The touching had signified the good night she had not had voice to say. He was closer to her than ever, but he felt almost none of the excitement that Betty Kaminsky had aroused. Colin MacIver had said that there was no such thing as an easy lay. Leland could not see what MacIver could have meant. MacIver had been tense and Leland was tired, lonely, and in need of loving; maybe the difference accounted for his failure to understand. Roberts said something about the appearance on television. For some reason he wanted to make conversation and Leland was reluctant to cut him off. Leland seemed to get along so well with reporters, Roberts said; he asked if they were friends off the job.

“I don’t know any of them,” Leland said. “Never saw that interviewer before tonight.”

“You see, that’s interesting,” Roberts said. “The announcer spoke of you as if he had coffee with you. And you don’t know him, either?”

“No, I never met him.”

“Do you know what I mean, Joe? They seem to have a good time when they’re with you. Maybe that’s why they like you.”

“I don’t know anything about it, Wendell. They don’t all like me. I made an enemy of one on Monday morning.”

“Oh? What was that about?”

“Something else. Manitou stuff.”

“All right. I’m glad you didn’t take Phyllis too seriously. I’m not sure that she remembers what she said to you.”