Stanley also knew that Don’s aspect had helped his role in life—eyes low on spark, paternal gravel in his voice, his expression a permanent implacability. Stanley had never ceased to be amazed at how looking the part contributed as much as meriting the position. Adam’s eyes were dry as old sand in a corner. He had a look like a crag. The only way anyone might have been able to tell his heart was in a state of pretty much perpetual torment was the way he put his chin in the air. Even that was a bad signal, because it seemed to broadcast self-righteousness. Stanley knew it for what it was. Adam was a conscientious man.

Stanley signed off—they would after all not need him, what with Adam, the White House reporter, and whoever else the copy chief had telephoned. As he got up from his chair, he realized his finger was still staunching his thumb. The pressure was too much, and he’d restarted the seep of blood along the base of the nail. He reached for a tissue on his desk. As he did, he saw that Adam had just appeared in the Room. He was walking toward Stanley. But then the White House reporter waved from the National Desk, and so did the copy chief, and so Adam raised his index finger and scrunched his eyes toward Stanley’s, saying, With you in one minute.

•  •  •

What we think we are, we’re just not,” said Mabel. It was late in the party, a glass of spilled red mopped with white napkins, the cork popping for another bottle.

“How so?” asked an editor at a weekly news magazine. His cheeks were boyish, his skin smooth, his hair—an indistinction of brown—receding. He was, if he stayed in the right company, somewhat feared.

“This is a new time,” Don said. Mabel couldn’t help considering his jaw. “Stolid” was the word for it. When she saw Don, her husband of the last twenty-two years, father of their three sons, her mind went to “jaw” and “stolid” on a conveyor belt. She wondered which words his mind automated toward when he saw her.

“There have been new times before,” the historian had to say.

“So what are we?” asked the editor, rhetorically, through his malaise. How many times could this conversation be had?

“Imperialists. I think that’s obvious to everyone. We don’t even need to talk about it.” This was from a thin woman who played second cello in a chamber ensemble. Mabel thought she was a flipper, a goose, a kumquat of a person.

“You can’t be serious,” said the woman’s husband. He was an economist.

“Partly, partly I am,” the cellist continued. “The CIA is constantly going into other countries, and people die mysteriously because of what we do.”