Of the people who were ill today, the one who had Leland’s least sympathy was his partner’s wife, Joan Petrakis. Under normal circumstances days would pass and Leland would not hear of her or give her a thought. Twice this morning he himself had mentioned her name, and perhaps, indirectly, Mrs. MacIver had been the cause. She had brought Mike Petrakis’ background into the conversation at the beginning and she was close to his age—a year or two younger. For his own amusement Leland wondered how Mrs. MacIver would react to a close-quarters encounter with the woman who was the wife of All-America ’49—who had had that automobile accident. It was impossible for anyone to come out the victor in a skirmish with Joan, let alone Norma MacIver with her slowballer’s assortment of social assets. Joan was simply overpoweringly concerned with her own welfare and as talented in the infighting as a crippled tiger. What Leland entertained himself imagining was Norma MacIver’s unhappiness after the fact, as she compared the wife to the husband in the light of her own bannerless intentions. Mike Petrakis had the maddening positive trustfulness of many football players—men who had broken others’ bones strictly by accident—but not his wife. Joan Petrakis could take one look at the swollen-bellied Widow MacIver and conclude that she was plotting Mike’s seduction in a revolving door. Down deep, it was the way Joan was. She suspected everyone, including Karen and Steffie, and not in the least Leland himself, if not of a plot then some knowledge that could hurt her, and the end product of the suspicion and her desire to stay better than even was that she was more guilty than anyone she knew of the offenses she pretended to condemn. She knew it; she was not stupid. She turned every meeting into a skirmish, so that any pleasure that could have been derived was swept away, and all the people involved—except her husband, whose mind was a blank when it came to perversity—went away with the sense of having done battle for their dignity, if not integrity. Leland was curious about the questions Norma MacIver would ask after such a meeting, how she would react to the answers, and the way she would measure them against her knowledge of her own struggle.