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Jeff Cormack stood looking through a thick glass window onto a field of Kennedy Airport, drawing on a cigarette that he hoped would be his last before he boarded. Twice they had announced delays that had caused the passengers to disperse, humping hand luggage back to the departure lounge or to one of the bars for a drink. It was a foggy day in November.

Here it came again, the droning female voice, “Passengers on TWA Flight eight-oh-seven to Paris are kindly requested . . .”

A collective groan, mumbles of impatience drowned out the voice, so that people asked others, “Did she say half an hour?” The answer was yes.

Jeff picked up his attaché case, and was turning toward the doorway when he saw a face some five yards away that made him stop and stay motionless for a few seconds. Phyl. No, it couldn’t be. This girl looked hardly twenty. But the resemblance! The light brown eyes with the sharp upward slant at the outer corners, the fresh pink at the cheekbones, the soft abundant hair of the same dark brown as Phyl’s. And the lips! The girl was like Phyl at the time Jeff had met her. Jeff tore his eyes away and reached for his black case, which was somehow on the floor again.

He felt shattered, and noticed that his hands trembled a little.

He mustn’t look at the girl again, he thought, not try to find her again. She was evidently on the same flight. He walked slowly toward the bar, not caring where he walked, because he had no purpose in doing anything except to kill the next half hour. He’d be quite late getting to Paris at this rate, after midnight certainly before he got to his hotel. He would still try to reach Kyrogin by telephone tonight, and he envisaged staying up all night, because he didn’t know and his office scouts hadn’t been able to find out exactly when Kyrogin was arriving in Paris and where he was staying. At least it wouldn’t be at the Russian Embassy, Jeff thought. Kyrogin was an engineer, an important man but not a Communist deputy. Jeff knew that Kyrogin’s mission was semi-secret, that he was in search of a bargain, and Jeff wanted to get to him first, meaning before any other American firm, or maybe an English firm, got to him. Jeff had to convince Kyrogin that his company, Ander-Mack, was the best possible one for setting up oil rigs.

Thinking of the job he had to do in the next twenty-four hours gave Jeff a sense of solidity, of definite time and place.

The girl’s face had whisked him back eighteen—no, twenty—years, to the year he had met Phyl. Not that he had stopped thinking about Phyl during all that time. They had been together for a little over a year. Then, after they had parted, he had thought about her a lot for the next two years, the Awful Years, as he called them. Then had come a three- or four-year break, in a manner of speaking, when he had not thought about her (not with the same intensity), when he had worked even harder at his own work in order to keep Phyl out of his mind, not to mention that during that period he had met someone else and got married. His son Bernard was now fifteen, going to Groton and not doing too well. Bernard had no idea of what he wanted to be as yet. Maybe an actor. And Betty, his wife, lived in Manhattan. He’d said good-bye to her this morning, and said he would be back in three days, maybe sooner. Just three hours ago. Was it possible?

Jeff found himself stirring his usual one lump of sugar into his coffee. He didn’t remember ordering coffee. He stood with one leg over the seat of a stool, his topcoat folded over his arm. And his black case was at his feet, he saw. In it was the informal contract that he wanted Kyrogin to sign, or agree to. He’d make it. Jeff downed the last of his coffee and, feeling more sure of himself, surveyed the people at the little tables along the glass wall. He was looking deliberately now for the girl who resembled Phyl.

There she was, seated at a table with a young man in blue jeans and denim jacket, and Jeff judged from their attitudes that they were not together. The girl was neatly dressed (as Phyl would have been) in a well-cut navy blue coat, an expensive-looking scarf at her neck. Suddenly it crossed Jeff’s mind that she could be Phyl’s daughter. How else could there be such a resemblance? Phyl had married—nineteen years ago, Jeff remembered with painful accuracy—a man called Guy. Guy what? Fraser or Frazier, something like that. Jeff had deliberately tried to forget how to spell it, and had succeeded.

The girl looked at him, happened to lift her eyes straight toward him, and Jeff felt as if he had been shot.

Jeff dropped his own eyes, closed them, heard his heart catching up, and he slowly reached for his wallet and put a dollar bill on the counter. That had been like the first time he had seen Phyl, in that room full of other people. Worse now, because he knew Phyl. He knew also that he still loved her. He had come to terms with that years ago, he reminded himself. A man didn’t commit suicide, didn’t ruin his career, just because he was in love with a girl he couldn’t have. There was such a thing as trying to forget, which really meant trying not to dwell upon it, or let it become an obsession. His love for Phyl was now something he had to live with, he had decided. But he had to admit that not a month, not a week went by, even now, when he didn’t think of Phyl, didn’t imagine being with her—in bed, out of bed, just existing, with her. And now he was married, the outer trappings were there, solid, tangible as his son Bernard, real as the ugly brown formica bar under his fingers now, or as a bullet that might penetrate his forehead and kill him.

He hoped he would not be seated next to the girl on the seven-hour flight to Paris. If that happened, he’d ask for his seat to be changed on some pretext. But with two hundred or so passengers, it wasn’t likely.

Twenty minutes later, Jeff was being borne at increasing speed across the airfield, and then came the lift, the wonderful lightness as the air took over and the ground dropped below and the roar of the motors became fainter. On Jeff’s left was a window looking out on a gray wing, and on his right a plump woman with a midwestern accent, and next to her a man who was probably her husband. From where he sat, Jeff ­couldn’t see the girl, and he had avoided looking for her when the scores of passengers had been boarding.

Jeff unfastened his seat belt and lit a cigarette. A stewardess made slow progress up the aisle, and when she arrived, Jeff ordered a scotch on the rocks. Then came lunch. Then the sky began to darken as they raced in the same direction as the earth turned. A film made its appearance at the end of the plane’s aisle. Jeff had declined the use of earphones. He wanted to snooze if he could. He lowered the back of his seat, closed his eyes and loosened his tie.

Kyrogin, Jeff was thinking, might not be difficult. Kyrogin had showed a sense of humor on the telephone last week. “Our seas are not made of vodka,” Kyrogin had said, his accent heavy in a baritone voice. Meaning it was not pleasant to fall into the White Sea in winter or any other time. That was a crack against Ander-Mack’s safety laws. Jeff’s company avoided unions. They hired roustabouts for dangerous work at high wages. The Russians were not famous for unions or for respect for life and limb, so Jeff wasn’t worried. If he could only show Kyrogin the contract, then the deal was clinched, Jeff thought. Jeff envisaged Russian labor plus some Scots and English dropouts from the British North Sea oil operations. The boys were tough, they got injured, or killed, they became bored, a lot quit. But no one could deny that the pay was good. That was what counted for them, and what counted for the Russians was speed.

As a matter of fact, Jeff thought as he looked down the dimly lit aisle of the plane, there might be a representative of a rival firm on this flight. If so, Jeff didn’t know what man, even what type of man to look for. Young or old, conservative or—the opposite, he’d be carrying the same kind of papers as Jeff, carrying the same kind of hope. Jeff slumped in his seat, and tried to relax and doze off.

You haven’t any time for me anymore. . . .

Jeff sat up again. Through the gentle hum of the jets, Phyl’s voice had come, straight into his ears. Jeff rubbed his eyes, deliberately yawned, and lay back again. He locked his fingers across his waist, and was about to close his eyes when the girl who looked like Phyl, coatless now and in a light-colored blouse, dark skirt, walked toward him in the aisle. She was going to stop and say something to him, he thought. Absurd! He was half asleep. But he sat up just as the girl passed his seat row, as if to brace himself, as if there weren’t two people between him and the girl.

Down the aisle, a pair of horses galloped noiselessly, in color, straight toward the audience. Wide awake now, Jeff suffered a long minute of depression, as if his mind, somewhere unknown even to him, had taken a toboggan ride into a dark valley. He knew why he had gone over his current assignment, why he had reaffirmed his confidence in himself: his work was all he had. And yet he knew that because of his work he had lost Phyl. Phyl had been engaged to Guy. And Guy—or rather his family—had money. Jeff had wanted to compete, to prove himself, in the way he thought would count with Phyl, by making money, solid, big money. Oddly and ironically, Jeff thought, Phyl might have stayed with him if he hadn’t made a lot of money, just a bit, and if he’d spent more time with her. Ironically, Phyl had drifted away, because she had thought he was drifting away. They’d had just thirteen months together, composed of a week snatched here and there, a few days in hotels in Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, happy moments when Jeff had clasped Phyl in his arms (in motels, hotels, in a certain apartment in Evanston rented in Phyl’s name), when he had said to her, “Everything went great today! We’re ten thousand dollars richer. Maybe more, I haven’t figured it out yet.” But what had counted, it seemed, and against him, was the time he had spent away from Phyl, too many days, perhaps just three days at a time, but too many. That was how Jeff saw it, anyway. But the loss! When he had thought he had “succeeded” to find it a “failure”! For Phyl, he had summoned all his drive. He didn’t regret that.

Wasn’t the girl going to return down the aisle? Jeff slumped again and put his hand over his eyes, so he couldn’t possibly know when she passed again.

At Roissy Airport, the passengers from Flight 807 trickled toward the passport control desks and became three solid lines. The girl, Jeff saw, was the second person in front of him. Then the man between them hailed someone behind Jeff and quit the line, and Jeff was right behind the girl. She had a white plastic carryall at her feet, and out of the top of it, beside an open carton of Camels from which one pack had been removed, poked the furry head of a toy panda. Jeff let the distance between him and the girl widen by a few inches. The passport stamps thumped, the lines crept. When the girl reached for the carryall, the panda fell out, and the girl didn’t notice.

Jeff retrieved the panda. “Excuse me,” he said. “You dropped this.”

Phyl’s eyes glanced at him, then the panda. “Oh, thank you! My good luck piece!” She smiled.

Even her teeth were like Phyl’s, the eyeteeth slightly pointed. Jeff acknowledged her thanks with a slight nod. The line moved.

“I’d’ve missed that. If I’d lost it, I mean. Thanks very much,” the girl said over her shoulder.

“Not at all.” Was her voice like Phyl’s? Not really, Jeff thought.

The girl, then Jeff, passed the control desk and walked into the freedom of Paris. Jeff’s pulse slowed to normal. He did not look to see if the girl was being met by any of the people waiting, some of them waving to faces that they recognized.

Jeff was able to claim his suitcase quickly, and then he headed for the taxi rank. He asked the driver to go to the Hôtel Lutetia. It was just after one A.M. and raining slightly.

“Bon soir,” Jeff said to the clerk at the hotel desk, and continued in French, “I have a reservation since yesterday. Cormack.”

The clerk smiled as he greeted Jeff. Jeff didn’t know this clerk, but the clerk evidently knew Jeff’s name. “Monsieur Cormack! Yes, sir. You have an appartement, as your cable requested. That is number twenty-four, sir.”

The bar was still functioning, Jeff saw. He intended to send for a bottle of cold mineral water, maybe coffee also. In his room—a nice, spacious room adjoining a salon—Jeff hung up a dark blue suit and tossed folded white silk pajamas on the turned-down bed, washed his face and hands at the bathroom basin, then picked up the telephone. He had a sudden hunch, for no reason at all, that Kyrogin was at the George V, and he was going to try it.

There was a soft knock at the door. Jeff put the telephone down.

A bellhop stood outside the door with a message on a tray. “A cable for you, sir. We regret we forgot to give it to you downstairs.”

“Thank you,” Jeff said, and took the cable. He closed the door and tore the envelope open. The cable said:

EITHER INTER-CONTINENTALE OR GEORGE V.

Jeff smiled a little. He’d been right about the George V. That was a good omen. The cable was unsigned. Jeff knew it was from Ed Simmons. Ed had been pulling every string in New York and Moscow to find out where Kyrogin would be staying in Paris, in order to save Jeff some time.

Jeff picked up the telephone again. “I would like to ring the George V, please.” After a few seconds, he had the George V switchboard. “May I speak with Monsieur Kyrogin, please? That’s K-y-r-o-g-i-n.”

“One moment, sir.”

If the clerk demurred about ringing Kyrogin, Jeff was prepared to say that Monsieur Kyrogin was expecting his call, regardless of the hour.

“I am sorry, sir, there is no Monsieur Kyrogin here.”

“May I ask what time you are expecting him?” Jeff asked in a tone of confidence.

“We are not expecting him, sir. I have the reservations here before me. No one by the name of Kyrogin is expected.”

“I see. Thank you.” Jeff put the telephone down. That was a disappointment. Was the operator correct?

There was still the Inter-Continentale, and Jeff took up the phone again, and glanced at his watch. Exactly two A.M. Jeff asked the Lutetia operator to ring the Inter-Continentale for him and, when Jeff’s telephone rang, went through the same procedure.

“One moment, sir,” said the Inter-Continentale operator. And then, after a moment, “He has not yet arrived, sir.”

Jeff smiled, relieved. “But you are expecting him—when?”

“Any moment, sir. The note here says he will be arriving tonight but possibly quite late.”

“May I leave a message? I would like him to ring Monsieur ­Cormack”—Jeff spelled this—“at the Hôtel Lutetia.” He gave his hotel’s number, which was on a card by the telephone. “It is most important, tell him, and he may ring me when he comes in, at any hour tonight. Is this understood?”

“Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”

Jeff was not at all sure Kyrogin would ring at any hour, not if he came in tired at three A.M., not if he was in Paris this very minute, still with his suitcase, talking to the representative of some other firm, and maybe concluding a deal. Kyrogin would know what Jeff’s message meant, and he would know the name Cormack from Ander-Mack. So what Jeff had to do tonight was ring every fifteen minutes or so, and hope to catch Kyrogin at the Inter-Continentale when he arrived and before he went to bed and refused to take any calls.

Jeff unpacked the rest of his things, put his attaché case on the writing table in his bedroom and his memo book on the oval table in the salon by the telephone. There was also a telephone by his bedside. Then he lifted the telephone again and ordered a large bottle of Vichy. “Just put it in my room, would you? I’m going down to the bar for a coffee.” Jeff suddenly wanted to get out of his room, to move around a little.

He took the stairs down. The first thing he saw, the first thing his eyes focused on, when he reached the lobby, was the girl. The girl again. Yes. With the long brown hair, and in the navy blue coat. She stood talking to the man behind the desk. Jeff wanted to speak with the clerk before he went into the bar, and he walked toward the desk with a deliberate casualness.

The clerk looked at him, and Jeff said:

“I’m expecting a telephone call at any moment. I’ll be in the bar—at least for the next fifteen minutes.”

“Oui, monsieur,” said the clerk.

The girl recognized Jeff. “Well—hello again!” She looked a little tired, and worried.

Jeff smiled. “Hello again.” He went into the nearly empty bar, and took a stool at the counter. When the barman had finished polishing a glass, Jeff ordered a coffee.

“We are closing soon, sir, but there is just time for a coffee.”

The girl—Jeff could see half her figure, the back of her head and coat—stood with an indefinite air in front of the desk. Then she walked slowly with her suitcase and the carryall into the bar. She gave him barely a glance, and took one of the stools three distant from Jeff, occupied it by putting her handbag on it.

“Have you any fresh orange juice?” she asked the barman in English.

“I am sorry, mademoiselle, the bar is close,” said the barman in English also. He was again polishing glasses.

“A glass of water?” the girl asked.

“Certainly, miss.” The barman poured it and set it in front of her.

She was waiting for someone, Jeff supposed. Maybe the room reserved wasn’t in her name. If so, the hotel perhaps couldn’t let her take the room. Jeff concentrated on finishing his coffee, which was very hot.

Suddenly—Jeff felt it—the girl turned her eyes toward him.

“Can you imagine, I’ve had a room reserved here for at least two weeks, and because I’m a day early, maybe a typographical error on somebody’s part, not mine—” She gave a sigh. “Well, I’m supposed to wait till noon tomorrow and take a seat in the lobby, unless some other hotel comes up with a room tonight, and it doesn’t look like it, because they’ve already called three.”

This burst made Jeff dismount from his stool. His mind was dazzled by the memory of Phyl losing her temper in the same manner, talking in the same way. Jeff was also trying to think of a solution. Some fleabag hotel would have a room at this hour, but he didn’t think the girl would want such a hotel. “That’s tough.—There’s not even a small room free here?”

“No! I’ve really asked.” She sipped her water with an air of disgust.

Jeff put a five-franc piece on the counter. “I’ll speak with the desk, see what I can do,” he said to the girl, and went into the lobby.

The desk clerk, courteous as ever, said, “I know, Monsieur Cormack, it is a mistake with the date. By one day. But we simply have no room, not even a little one. There is only a cot in a servants’ corridor—absurd! And the less good hotels—they are not even answering the telephone at this hour!” He shrugged.

“I see.” Jeff went back into the bar.

The girl looked at him with a faint hope in her face.

“No luck there. If it’s just a matter of waiting . . .” He struggled with his words, reassured himself that his objective was to be helpful, and plunged ahead. “You could sit down more comfortably in my suite. I’ve got two rooms. In what’s left of the night . . .”

The girl was hesitating, too tired to decide at once.

“We can speak to the desk, tell them you’re in my suite, if you’re expecting someone.”

“Yes, but I’m expecting someone tomorrow.—Frankly, I’d give anything just to wash my face,” the girl said in a whisper. She looked near tears.

Jeff smiled. “Come on, we’ll tell the desk,” he said, and picked up her suitcase. He noticed that the panda was still in the carryall. At the desk, he said, “Mademoiselle has decided to wait in my apartment.”

The clerk looked a little surprised, then relieved that the problem had been solved. “Très bien, monsieur.” He nodded a good night to them.

They went up in the elevator, which was self-operating, and Jeff pulled out his key and opened the door.

He had left the lights on. He followed the girl into the salon with her suitcase, and closed the door. “Please make yourself at home.” He put her suitcase by the sofa. “The bathroom’s beyond the bedroom. I think I’ve got to stay up all night for a business call, so it won’t bother me at all if you walk through.”

“Thanks very much,” the girl said.

Then she was in the bathroom, her coat lay on the sofa, her suitcase was opened on the floor, and Jeff stood listening to the water running. He felt curiously stunned. Frightened, even. He didn’t want to know if the girl was Phyl’s daughter, he realized. He wasn’t going to ask her anything that might lead to information about her mother.

Jeff picked up the telephone and asked for the Inter-Continentale again. Now it was 2:37 A.M.

“No, Monsieur Kyrogin has not arrived, sir,” said the male voice at the other end.

“Thank you.” Jeff felt suddenly discouraged. He imagined Kyrogin having been met at the airport by some enterprising fellow who had found out his arrival time, imagined them talking now in a bar or in the hotel room of the other man, and Kyrogin agreeing to the other man’s proposal. They’d maybe toast it in vodka.

The girl came back. Jeff was still standing by the telephone.

She smiled, fresh-faced. “That was wonderful!”

Jeff nodded absently. He had been calculating flying time from Moscow. And could Kyrogin be at another hotel, not the Inter-Continentale, even though he’d made a reservation there? Of course he could be. “I’ll go into the bedroom. So make yourself comfortable here. You probably want to sleep. I think that sofa’s just about long enough.”

She had sat down on the sofa, slipped off her shoes. “Why do you have to stay up all night?” she asked with a childlike curiosity.

“Because—I’m trying to reach a man who’s due in from Moscow. And he hasn’t arrived at his hotel yet.”

“Moscow—you’re a government official?”

“No, just an engineer.” Jeff smiled. “Would you like some mineral water? It’s all I have to offer.” The Vichy stood in an ice bucket on the oval table.

The girl said she would, and Jeff poured it. He went to get a glass for himself from the bathroom. The girl had left her wash cloth spread on the basin rim, out of habit, probably. He took off his tie, opened his shirt collar, then took off his jacket. He went back to the anteroom and poured himself a glass of Vichy. He was thirsty.

“I’m going to have a shower,” he said. “If the telephone rings, give me a shout, would you? I’m not sure I’ll be able to hear it.”

“Sure.”

Jeff showered, put on pajamas and because of the girl’s presence put on also a seersucker dressing gown. He had closed the door to the salon, and now he knocked gently, in case she was asleep.

“Yes?”

He opened the door. The girl was half reclined on the sofa, still dressed, reading a magazine.

“It just occurred to me you might want a shower or a bath. Why not? Anyway you’re not going to sit up all night, I hope.”

“I don’t know. I suddenly don’t feel sleepy. Second wind, maybe. It’s so strange being here.”

Jeff gave a laugh. “It’s a strange night. Or morning. I’ve got to try my quarry again in a minute and after that I’ll be reading, too, so it won’t bother me in the least if you walk through to the bathroom.”

“Thanks. Maybe I will.”

Jeff went into his room, this time did not quite close his door, and tried the Inter-Continentale again. The answer was the same. Now it was after three. What other hotel should he try? The Hilton? Should he ring Roissy and ask about incoming flights from Moscow? Abruptly Jeff remembered that he had a bottle of scotch in a plastic bag by his suitcase. He opened the bottle, and poured some into his glass.

Then he tapped on the half-open door again. “Hey . . .” The girl was still reading. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Eileen.”

Eileen what? he wondered, then remembered that he didn’t want to know. “Eileen—would you possibly like a nightcap? Scotch.”

“Yes! I think that would be nice.”

He added scotch to her Vichy water, then brought the bucket and offered it to her. “Ice down there.”

“Any luck with your phone calls?” She fished ice cubes out.

“No. No.” Jeff took a cigarette.

“What’s it all about?—Or is it a secret?”

“Not unless you’re a competitor. It’s about setting up oil rigs in the White Sea. My firm does that—that kind of thing. We want the job.—And I have a good offer to make,” he added, as if thinking out loud or justifying himself, and he began walking slowly around the room. He remembered talking to Phyl about his work, just like this, but in those days he would have been smiling, would have gone to Phyl and kissed her, and then—

“You’re a very serious man, aren’t you?”

You haven’t any time for me anymore, Jeff heard in his ears again. The girl’s voice was like Phyl’s, or her accent was, and there was a ringing quality in the higher tones, a resonance like that of a stringed instrument, that was also like Phyl’s.

“I hope you make it,” the girl said. “The White Sea—I only know where the Baltic is.”

Jeff smiled. “The White Sea’s north of that. The big port there’s Archangel.” The girl was looking at him in awe, Jeff could see.

She took a swallow of her drink. “I wish I were here for something as sensible as that—as important as that.”

Jeff looked at his watch, wishing the time would pass faster, that it would be eight or nine A.M., hours when people could do business. Maybe. “You’re here on vacation?”

“I’m here to get married.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s funny, isn’t it? I mean, since I’m alone now. But my mother’s due tomorrow and my—my fiancé’s coming in a couple of days. We’re going to Venice—for the wedding. Well, I’m not sure Mom’s coming to Venice. She’s funny.” The girl looked suddenly uncomfortable and glanced at Jeff with a nervous smile.

Mom was coming to this hotel, Jeff was thinking. He put out his cigarette, started to sit down and didn’t. “She’s funny?”

“Oh, she thinks I’m funny. Maybe it’s true. But I’m not sure I want to get married. You see?”

Jeff supposed the young man was a “nice” young man, approved by her family. Jeff wasn’t interested in asking anything about him. “If you’re not sure, then why do you even consider marrying?”

“That’s just it! That’s the way I feel.—Do you think I could have just a little more scotch?”

“All you want,” Jeff said, and set the bottle on the table in front of the sofa. “You pour it.”

She poured an inch, the bottle slipped and more went in. Jeff brought the Vichy bottle.

“I wish I were someone else. I wish I weren’t here. He’s—” She stopped, frowning into space. “It’s not so much him as the fact I don’t want to get tied down. After all, I’m only eighteen.”

“Well . . . can’t you postpone it?”

“Yes-s. Indefinitely. That’s what I’d like to do.” She drank off all her glass. “You really wouldn’t mind if I took a shower? That’s what I need.” She stood up.

“All yours,” Jeff said, nodding toward the bathroom. “You can even borrow my dressing gown.”

In the doorway the girl hesitated, as if it were a big decision, then said, “I’d like to borrow it, if I may, even though I’ve got one.” She held out her hand.

Smiling, Jeff untied his belt, and handed the dressing gown to her. Ah, youth! Troubles! Rebellion! Eileen didn’t know yet what troubles were! Apparently she wasn’t even in love with the young man. Or was she? Jeff looked into the long mirror between the windows, reassured himself that he was presentable in his pajamas, then something occurred to him that had to do with the word rebellion. Phyl had rebelled against her fiancé Guy. Almost for the sake of rebelling, it seemed to Jeff in retrospect—and it was a horrible thought for him. She’d fairly jilted Guy and run off with him, Jeff, for more than a year. Then convention or “sanity” had returned to Phyl, according to her lights. And at what pain to him! He still had the pain, and it was still sharp—after nineteen years. The girl Eileen needed a lecture, Jeff thought, from someone. He wasn’t going to give it to her.

He looked at his watch again, as if to drag himself back to his job, his search for the elusive Kyrogin. Before long, they’d be serving breakfast in the hotel. That was what he and the girl needed, a seven A.M. breakfast with strong coffee.

Jeff laughed out loud. Here he was, a forty-four-year-old man in a Paris hotel suite with a good-looking girl he hadn’t made the slightest pass at, longing for breakfast at seven A.M., or even earlier if possible. Jeff stared into his own smiling eyes in the long mirror, then the smile left his eyes as it had left his lips. He thought his dark hair had a bit more gray in it than the last time he had taken a look. He touched his cheek. He could use a shave.

The girl was coming in, barefoot, carrying her clothes over her arm. Now she looked even lovelier with her hair slightly dampened. “What were you laughing at?”

Jeff shook his head. “Can’t tell you.”

“You were laughing at me,” she said.

“No!—What does your father say about your marriage?”

“Oh—Dad.” She collapsed on the sofa again, dumped her clothes beside her, then took a cigarette and lit it. “Well, basically he takes an ‘I’ll keep out’ attitude, but he definitely wants me to get married. Now, I mean. After all, I quit college because I fell in love, I thought—and because I thought I preferred to get married rather than spend another nearly three years in college. You see?”

Jeff was sitting in an upholstered chair. “I suppose I see. In other words, your mother and father are in agreement—that you ought to get married.”

“Yes. But Phyl—that’s my mother, and half the time I call her Phyl—she’s more insistent about it. I mean, she tries to exert more control over me than Dad.—What’s the matter?”

Jeff felt weak, a little dizzy. He sat up and leaned forward, like a man trying to pull out of a faint. “Nothing. Suddenly tired. I think I’ll have another snort. I need it.” He got up and poured some scotch, straight, into his empty glass. He sipped it, letting it burn his tongue and his throat back to life.

“You look pale. I bet you’ve been working like mad lately. . . .”

Now she was just like Phyl, comforting in a crisis, ready to minister—providing it was a minor crisis like this one. Jeff slowly felt stronger. The sips of scotch did him good, and quickly.

“. . . tell you how much I admire you. You’re doing something important. You’re a man of the world. You’ve achieved something.”

Jeff exploded in a laugh.

“Don’t laugh,” the girl said, frowning. “How many men—and you’re not even old. My Dad’s important, maybe, but he just inherited his job and I bet you didn’t. And I frankly can’t imagine Malc getting very far in life. He’s had it too easy.”

Malc, Malcolm was doubtless the fiancé. Had Phyl ever mentioned his own name? Jeff wondered. Maybe once or twice? But if only once or twice, the girl wouldn’t remember, probably. He hoped she didn’t know, or hadn’t heard his name. Suddenly the girl stood close in front of him, her hands on his shoulders. She put her arms around his neck.

“Do you mind,” she whispered, “if I put my arms around you?”

Jeff’s hands lifted also, he pulled the girl toward him, for seconds closed his eyes and felt her hair against his forehead. She was the same height as Phyl. How well he remembered! Then he released her and stepped back.

“You’re annoyed?” she asked. “I’ll tell you something—straight—if I may. I’d like to go to bed with you.” The last words were so soft, he barely heard them.

But he had heard them.

“Are you afraid of me? I’m not going to tell anybody. And I’m not feeling my drinks, if I may say so. I’m quite sober.” Her eyes, Phyl’s eyes, looked straight at him, steady, and with a smile in them.

“It’s not that.”

“Not what?”

Why not? Jeff was thinking then. As the girl said, who would know? And what would it matter even if Phyl found out? If Jeff wanted to be vindictive—it would serve Phyl right if she found out. But Jeff really didn’t feel vindictive.

“And another thing,” the girl continued in the same soft voice, “I’d like to see you again. Maybe again and again. Do you travel a lot? So could I. I’m in the mood for traveling a lot.” She still held to Jeff’s right hand, and her fingers tightened on his.

His desire was there, and so was a thought, and the thought was that he’d be taking advantage of the girl when she was in an upset state (as nearly every man would, he realized, too), and he was also thinking that he didn’t want to lose his memory of Phyl, Phyl as she had been with him, not as this girl would be, a nearly identical copy of Phyl, but not quite identical. Even her face wasn’t quite identical. Jeff smiled, and tugged his hand from hers. “Take it easy. You’re upset.”

She wasn’t hurt. She looked at him mischievously. “You’re an odd one.”

He didn’t rise to the bait. He lit another cigarette. “You know you’re going to marry your Mister Right, so why do you fool around with other people?”

“Do you think I’m in the habit of—”

“Oh, stop the crap!”

This time it sank in. “Now you sound like an American.”

“I said I was an American.” He was angry, and now he knew why, exactly why. This girl would lead him on, might lead other younger men on, exactly as Phyl had, lead them into misery if they were dumb enough to fall in love. The very harshness of his thoughts made him feel a sudden pity for the girl, as if he had said out loud what he was thinking, and had wounded her. “It doesn’t mean . . . I’m your enemy,” he said. But of course it did. “Why not leave things the way they are? Simple.”

Now she looked puzzled.

The telephone rang, and Jeff for a second relaxed, as if he had been a boxer, saved, and in the next second thought, who could it be except Kyrogin, then thought that was too good to be true. He lifted the telephone.

“Allo?” said a deep voice.

“Hello. Cormack here.”

“Ha-ha. Kyrogin here. What time is it?”

Kyrogin sounded a bit drunk. “I dunno. Four, maybe. Mr. Kyrogin, I’d like very much to see you. And thank you for ringing me. You’re at the Inter-Continentale?”

“Yes, and I am very sleepy. But I know—I know—you are an American engineer.”

“Yes. Look, can I see you early tomorrow morning? I mean this morning? After you’ve had some sleep?”

Silence. Deep breathing. Was Kyrogin lighting a cigarette or passing out?

“Mr. Kyrogin—Semyon,” Jeff said.

“Semyon here,” said Kyrogin.

“It’s about the White Sea thing, you know,” Jeff persisted, thinking if anyone were listening at this hour, they deserved a medal. “Have you—have you done anything about the deal, or can we still discuss it?” Long pause. “Have you spoken with anybody else about it tonight?”

“I was with my French girlfriend tonight,” said Kyrogin.

Jeff smiled. “I see.” He sat down in the chair behind him. “In that case, after you’ve slept—can I phone you around ten? I’ll phone you around ten. Your first appointment is with me, understand, Mr. Kyrogin? Jeff Cormack.”

“Right you are,” said Kyrogin, as if remembering some of his English lessons. “I have done no work at all tonight,” he added sadly.

It was the sweetest confession Jeff had ever heard. “That’s all right, Semyon. Sleep well. Good night.” Jeff hung up and turned to the girl, beaming.

Eileen smiled back at him, with a look of triumph, as if the victory was hers, too. “You’re going to be the first to see him.”

“Yes, so it seems.” Jeff slapped his hands together, then stood up. “And I’m going to have another scotch.”

“Good. May I join you?”

Jeff made them both fresh drinks. The Vichy bottle was empty. He filled the third glass in the bathroom and brought it, in case they wanted more water. He could feel the girl’s zest and pleasure in his success (the first step to success, anyway) as he had felt Phyl’s in the old days. It was the same. The girl had brought him luck, as Phyl had done. It was Phyl who had given Jeff the courage to break away from his boss, and start a company on his own. Phyl who had launched him like a rocket, Phyl who had given him all the confidence in the world and all the happiness. And Jeff knew he could go to bed with the girl now, as he had so often with Phyl, under the same circumstances, in the same mood. Jeff felt the same desire, and he looked at the girl differently now, as if seeing her for the first time.

She understood. She put her glass down and embraced him, pressed herself against him. “Yes?” she said.

It was still no. And this time Jeff couldn’t explain, didn’t want to try to find words to explain to himself or to her. “No,” he said, and extricated himself.

He went into the bedroom, got his battery razor and went to work on his beard. He brushed his teeth. Then he went in to see the girl.

“I’m going to get some sleep till nine-thirty. Don’t you want to do the same?—Maybe you’d prefer my bed and I’ll take the sofa?”

“No,” she said sleepily, tired at last.

Jeff wasn’t going to argue. He was also tired. “Can I ask you one favor?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t mention my name to your mother—ever. All right?”

“Why should I? You haven’t done anything.”

He smiled. Maybe she wouldn’t remember his name, anyway. “Okay, Eileen. Good night.” He closed his door, then rang the desk downstairs and asked to be called at nine-thirty A.M. He got into bed, and after one long sigh fell sound asleep.

When the telephone rang the next morning and awakened him, he found the girl already up and dressed, putting on makeup in the salon mirror. Jeff had ordered breakfast for two.

“What time is your mother due?” he asked.

“Oh—her plane comes in at ten, I think.”

Jeff was relieved. He would pack his suitcase, check out this morning and spend—he hoped—most of the morning with Kyrogin. Anyway, Phyl was not due now, or even in the next hour, at the hotel. With his first cup of coffee, Jeff rang up Kyrogin. To Jeff’s surprise, Kyrogin answered promptly and sounded wide awake.

“Fine, Mr. Cormack! Come over anytime!”

Jeff packed his suitcase quickly, and when he had closed it, he said to the girl, “You’re welcome to stay here till noon, if you like. I’m checking out now, because—”

“Good luck with the Russian,” she interrupted him. She was having her breakfast at the oval table in the salon.

Jeff grinned. “Thanks, Eileen. I’ve got an optimistic feeling. You brought me luck, I think. I’m due there now, so I’ll say good-bye.”

She had lit a cigarette, and now she stood up. “Bye-bye. Thank you—thank you for putting me up.”

“No thanks necessary. Be happy! Bye-bye, Eileen.” Jeff went out with his suitcase and attaché case.

He left his suitcase downstairs with the desk clerk, asked for his bill, and said he would settle it later when he came to pick up the suitcase. He was in a hurry to get to Kyrogin. He took a taxi. The ride was not long.

Kyrogin asked Jeff to come up to his room. Kyrogin was in a silk dressing gown, and there was a demolished breakfast tray and a bottle of vodka, half empty, on his table. They ordered more coffee. Kyrogin added vodka to his. The telephone rang, and Kyrogin spoke in English, telling someone he was sorry, he was busy just now. In less than half an hour, Jeff had Kyrogin’s verbal agreement. Jeff used his usual method of persuasion, talking first about the difficulties and expense, then estimating the expense and time that another company might take in comparison with Ander-Mack, leaving Kyrogin to make the decision—a verbal one at that, so Kyrogin would not feel bound. Jeff had six copies of his estimate with him, and he gave Kyrogin what he wanted, four, to show his colleagues.

“Now you’ll have a vodka maybe,” said Kyrogin.

“Now maybe I will. With pleasure! I’ve got good news to take back to New York.”

“Phone them now. Tell them!” said Kyrogin with a wave of his hand toward the telephone.

“I’d like to. You really don’t mind?” Jeff was moving toward the telephone. Plainly Kyrogin wouldn’t mind. Jeff asked the operator to dial a New York number which was Ed Simmons’s home number. It would be around five A.M. in New York, but Ed wouldn’t mind being awakened with the news Jeff had. The operator said she would ring Jeff back, and then said the call was going through at once, and Jeff could hear Ed’s telephone ringing.

Ed answered sleepily, and came awake at the sound of Jeff’s voice.

“It’s okay at this end!” Jeff said.

“We’ve got the deal?”

“We’ve got it. See you soon as pos, old pal.” Jeff hung up.

Kyrogin gave Jeff an excellent cigar. It was like the old days, Jeff thought, when he’d been twenty-three and had concluded a fabulous deal (or so he’d thought then) and would be going home to—to Phyl, Phyl somewhere. It was because of the girl Eileen that Phyl seemed so close now, Phyl with the twinkle in her eyes, her pride in his victory that was like a whole football stadium cheering. And each victory had meant he was closer to her. . . .

“What are you thinking about?” Kyrogin asked through a cloud of cigar smoke, smiling.

“I was daydreaming. It’s your good vodka,” Jeff said, and stood up and took his leave. They shook hands warmly. The Russian had a powerful grip.

It was already two minutes to noon. Jeff took a taxi at the door of Kyrogin’s hotel and rode to the Lutetia.

When he walked into the lobby, he saw the girl again. And with her was Phyl. Now he really stopped dead, a couple of paces within the lobby. Phyl wore a hat. She was standing at a little distance from the desk, and she was plainly angry, furious even. Her cheeks were a bright pink as she delivered a tirade, apparently, to her daughter. Phyl looked shorter than the girl, than he remembered her, but it was because she had gained weight, Jeff realized. Phyl raised a fist and brandished it. The girl barely turned her head, didn’t retreat. What was Phyl scolding her about? Phyl might have heard that the girl had spent the night in a man’s suite, either from the girl herself or from the desk, Jeff supposed.

Suddenly his dream fell away. Something fell away, something died. Everything died. Phyl turned toward him, but in her anger didn’t see him, and Jeff saw that her face had grown pudgy, that her shorter hair under the hat was some odd reddish color. But it wasn’t that that upset him, it was the wrath in her face, the ugliness of spirit—her scolding of the girl. And he was positive Phyl was scolding her because she’d spent the night in a hotel room with a man, even if she “hadn’t done anything.” It was the goddamn prudishness, the conventionality, the phoniness, the holier-than-thou or than-the-girl part of it, the hypocrisy—because for Christ’s sake, hadn’t Phyl done the same thing when she was the girl’s age? Had an affair with a man if she damned pleased—the man being Jeff? And then, of course, back to Mister Right, back to the respectably-married-woman act, which she so ponderously embodied now.

Was this what he’d been in love with all this time?

Suppose he was married to Phyl now?

Jeff felt about to die. He wasn’t weak, wasn’t swaying on his feet. In fact he stood like a statue, where he was. Then Phyl and Eileen moved, toward the elevators, Phyl’s figure still stiff with rage, the girl’s flexible and rebellious. And Jeff was reminded of what he’d thought upstairs in his hotel room: the girl, like Phyl, would go on from him, find another fellow (maybe before she married) and lead him on, and abandon him, and get married, and maybe have a daughter—very pretty, of course—who’d do the same thing, in endless progression or procession.

And there was a second terrible thought, which Jeff had now and not for the first time, that if Phyl had betrayed Guy, who’d been not yet her husband but almost, then he, Jeff, might have been betrayed also in due time, even if he had married Phyl. If promises to lovers didn’t mean much, then neither would marital vows. In fact, which came first and which second? Yet it all hung together, and there was nothing lasting, for girls like Phyl, about any of it. What counted finally was “the way things looked.” And what girls like Phyl had in common was a certain coldness at the heart.

The elevator door mercifully closed the two of them from Jeff’s sight.

Jeff went and claimed his suitcase. He pulled his bill from a pocket, and paid in cash. Then he walked out of the hotel with his suitcase and attaché case, and said, “No” to the doorman who offered to hail a taxi for him. Jeff walked on, and for no particular reason turned the first corner to the right. He was lucid enough to know that he was in a daze, that somehow nothing mattered any longer, where he went, what he did, where he was, even who he was. Or what time it was, or what country it was. For several minutes Jeff walked with his suitcase that did not weigh much.

The holier-than-thou, do-the-right-thing attitude, Jeff was thinking. It was disgusting. Not like Phyl at all! And yet it was Phyl, now. He’d been living on a dream, some crazy dream. A dream of what? Not even a dream of marrying her one day, but still a dream. If he only hadn’t seen her this morning!

Well, then what?

He’d be able to live, that was what. That was clear. That was the only thing that was clear. It was something, to have something clear. And he’d succeeded with Kyrogin, and he’d be going back today to New York, to his office. And all this suddenly didn’t matter a damn. All of it mattered as little as the phony home he had with Betty, the phony outward appearance of a decent marriage, a teenage son going to the right school. Money. It didn’t mean anything. His life simply didn’t mean anything.

Somebody jolted Jeff in the shoulders. Jeff realized he was standing at the crossing of a big four- or six-lane avenue, and he hadn’t moved when the lights permitted the pedestrians to cross. But Jeff knew what he wanted to do, or rather half his mind knew, or realized. The other half didn’t matter. He wasn’t thinking. He knew he was past the point of thinking. Hadn’t he thought enough? All this went through his head in seconds, and when a big truck came thundering toward him, going to pass him at full speed right in front of him, Jeff dropped his suitcase and attaché case and flung himself in front of it, flat down, like a football tackler tackling nothing. He felt only the impact of the cobbly street, really.