hurled the glass against the wall. He glowered at her.

Helen, startled, looked at the shattered glass and the widening plum-colored stains on the table cloth. "Please, Frank, you needn't.

But he was enjoying the venting of his rage too much to stop now, and, although smashing the glass had served to dispel some of his fury, most of it remained. "You should have reminded me this morning, my dear. I would have picked up an anniversary present to send to the brides or grooms or whatever you want to call them. Why didn't you invite them to dinner? We could have had a real celebration."

Helen had taken all that she could take and still remain silent. She had hoped to weather the storm, but Frank was all too obviously bent on taking out the frustrations and pent-up hate of the last year on her. She cursed her folly for being so careless about the letter, but there was nothing that could be done about it now. She wondered how she could stop the diatribe before Frank became ill. She decided to be passive: it might madden him still more but at the very least it would surprise him. Picking up her fork, she began to eat her salad. Frank was thoroughly taken aback by this display of calm before his storm.

"Are you listening to me?" he said, indignant and incredulous. Helen stopped munching on her salad, swallowed slowly, and said quite calmly, "You have been shouting so loudly, Frank, that I could not but help hear you. But you shouldn't let yourself go like that. You know how upset you get."

"Damn my blood pressure. You're the cause of it," he shouted. "Frank," she said with the sorrowful attitude of a professor gently reproving a dull student, "surely you must know me better than that. I quite innocently and quite inadvertently used the letter as a bookmark. I told you why I bought the caviar it was just a silly whim. And as for the date, I had forgotten that today was the anniversary, as you call it. Funny that I should forget that."

"I think the whole thing is 'funny.' Fishy is more like it."

"Oh, Frank. Why must you assume that a few perfectly innocent coincidences add up to a plot? Very well, if you insist," she said resignedly. Adopting a forced, masklike expression and looking at the wall, she continued, "Yes, I bought the caviar deliberately because I knew you would comment on it. Yes, I didn't buy the champagne because I knew that that would make it too obvious. Yes, I deliberately brought the letter to the table because I knew you would notice it. And yes, I turned the paper so that you would notice the date."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him jerk his head slightly. He hadn't noticed that. Had the paper been turned up to the date? He was about to say something but the sarcastic note in her voice stopped him.

"But then, I always turn the paper that way," she went on. "Really, Frank, can you believe that I would deliberately do all of these things out of a sheer sadistic joy of seeing you have an apoplectic fit?"

"I'm sorry, Helen. I suppose I was exaggerating a bit."

Her plan had worked; he had spent most of his energy and was beginning to realize that he had done her an injustice. "You certainly were. And what have you to show for it? A perfectly clean tablecloth messed up, shattered glass all over the room, and I hate to think how high your blood pressure must be." Taking advantage of his momentary contriteness for having accused her of plotting against him, she dropped her sarcastic tone and continued earnestly. "I really would like to talk to you about John, Frank, but I don't consider this towering rage of yours to be quite the sort of thing I want to contend with. And furthermore, the dinner table is not the place to discuss the matter. You can't talk about our son . . . or my son," she corrected herself as if the slip were only a minor one, "the same way you talked about the caviar."

Frank, embarrassed now, and quite ill at ease, fidgeted with his paper, pecking at it with his fingers. She was quite right. He shouldn't let himself become so irrationally upset. A year ago he had nearly had a heart attack when

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