But as the minutes passed, Cliff began once more to create an impression of strain as he had during the boat trip when they first met, even a kind of anxiety. Scarcely looking at Grandin, he walked about the apartment admiring things too enthusiastically. John Grandin watched him. Then, as Cliff became aware of this, he went to a chair and sat down with a kind of self-­consciousness.

John Grandin took out a cigarette. Cliff, turning his gaze from the pictures on the wall, hurried across the room to light it for him; then, instead of sitting down again, he resumed his tour of inspection.

With his back to John Grandin, he put his broad hands on his waist, craned his tawny head upward, and gazed at the packed bookshelves reaching to the ceiling. Grandin saw two damp spots in the armpits of his khaki shirt, the first sign of sweat he had ever noticed in the immaculate Clifford Hauman; it must be because of the humid New York heat.

“Gosh, I never saw so many books in my life. Wouldn’t my daddy love this? He reads more books! Regular bookworm. . . .” He wheeled about and said, as if it were an afterthought—as if it had just occurred to him: “Say, Johnnie, would you mind if I took a bath? I’m just stinking hot. Dirty too, I guess. . . .”

Without waiting for consent, Cliff found at once the small bathroom between the living room and study, and a moment later Grandin heard the noise in the shower and Cliff sloshing about in the stinging spray.

. . . You son-­of-­a-­bitch, Grandin reflected, not without pleasure in spite of the violence of his thought. . . . I will not be played with in this fashion, I will not be made a monkey of. If he had any sense at all, he would have quitted the apartment at once, leaving Cliff to find his way out by himself. But he knew he couldn’t and wouldn’t. He stayed. To his dismay, he even discovered he liked it. He himself would never have dreamed of suggesting that Cliff should take a shower; it would have been so obvious, such a cheap invitation to sexuality, that he could not have brought himself even to hint of it—nor, for that matter, had it occurred to him. Yet when Cliff had expressed such a desire on his own, John Grandin had been helpless to refuse him.

In less than ten minutes, Cliff was again in the living room. He was fully dressed as before, shining and fresh; his field scarf looked as if he were wearing it for the first time; the damp dark spots under the armpits were gone.