"Perhaps you are right. I think I will go into the other room." His wife's tone was distant, almost unfriendly. He was glad that she had provided him. with the opportunity to be alone for a while.

He went into the living room, sat down in his favorite chair, and turned on the radio. He thought of listening to the news but decided against it. He often became upset when he listened to the reports of other men's follies and he had just finished reading the paper, or at least moving his eyes along the lines of print. He flicked the dial to a station which specialized in 'mood music' and slipped down to a comfortable position, Tonight, however, comfort was impossible. The rushing of his blood was too disquieting to make him feel at peace and the thoughts dredged forth this evening were too vivid and insistent to be put down and away easily. He could not drive them from his mind; he decided to fight them by thinking them. This idea acquired a growing, almost clinical, interest. He always considered himself to be an orderly man by force of habit; he decided to review the events leading up to last year's catastrophe.

He had wanted a son; he had been given a son. His attempts at further progeny were permanently frustrated by the near-fatal miscarriage that attended the aborted birth of the second child. He had wanted another son to be a companion to John. He would have been content with two sons Helen could have a girl later if they had to have another child. Ironically, he was left with no son at all, for John had grown up a stranger to his father. He was his mother's child. In the light of last year's events, he reflected bitterly that Helen had had her daughter after all. What had his son been like? Where had he 'gone wrong'? He could not answer.

Impulsively, he rose from his chair and went into the dining room. The book still lay on the table. He was about to open it and remove the letter, but he paused long enough to look at the jacket; a green jacket with a four-petalled leaf and a line-drawn face, author, title, 'A Modern Novel.' He lifted the cover to read the blurb. Helen often bought books which he considered to be obscure and which were beyond his limited tastes; he rarely inquired about them. But Helen had not bought this book. There on the flyleaf was his son's signature in the familiar firm hand. He glanced at the blurb. So. His son was now sending propaganda to his mother. He wanted to pick up the book and throw it, letter and all, into the fireplace. When he heard Helen closing the cupboards in the kitchen, he realized that she would be coming through the door any moment, and he retreated into the living room to sink back again in his chair, for he did not want her to know that he had been looking at the book, had almost read the letter. He would draw her out about the book when she returned. Yet he was ashamed that he had wanted to look at the letter. If he had been consistent, he would not have cared about it.

Helen came into the room bearing the book and sat down in her favorite chair, a firm yet comfortable chair quite unlike the almost slovenly, softly enveloping chair which Frank favored. She opened the book as Frank watched her. He wondered what she would do with the letter. She placed it on the table at her side. Then, naturally and yet obviously, she picked up the letter again and placed it between the endpapers of the book.

Frank was glad that she had made this gesture because it meant that she was aware that she was being watched and it gave him an opportunity to reopen their conversation. "What are you reading, dear?" he asked again in the most casual manner he could manage.

She raised her eyes to look at him but did not lift her head. "Hmmmm?

Oh, just a novel. Nothing that would interest you, dear."

Just get it today?" He all but leered. He enjoyed playing the cat. "Yes, I did."

You didn't tell me you were in town today."

"I wasn't. It came in the mail."

"Oh." He dropped his casual tone; he had caught his mouse. "Did John send it to you?"

one