what she knew. It was in the parlor that he noticed the album. It was lying on a table by the sofa, the word "Photographs" stamped in gold on its cover, and Peter's name written in ink below. Bobby looked about to make sure that no one was near. He listened to make sure that no one was coming. Then he picked up the album and began to look through it. On the first pages were pictures of Peter as a rosy-cheeked, laughing boy, clutching at his mother in the earlier ones, toddling off by himself later on. Then Peter's father disappeared, and mixed in with school pictures and family groups were pictures of Peter with various little girls, and later, bigger girls. The last one showed an adolescent Peter in cap and gown, his arm around the girl, and underneath it was written, "Peter and Mary Dee, High School Graduation."

Then there were pictures of Peter in college, Peter at midshipman school, Peter on his destroyer. He looked incredibly young and innocent in these, cheerfully smiling, squinting against the sun, clowning and playing the fool, but in these he was alone except for school friends or shipmates. Then there were pictures of Peter in Atlanta, still young, though beginning to look his present self, with one or another of the rich middle-aged women whose gardens he designed. Then there was nothing-blank pages, between which a few loose clippings from newspapers and magazines showed pictures of his gardens.

Bobby closed the album with trembling fingers and replaced it exactly where he had found it, so that no one would know he had looked at it. The only pictures of Peter he had ever seen showed him alone with another young man.

When Bobby thought he had waited long enough, he started out to the boxwood garden. But as he approached the opening in the hedges he saw Peter's mother approaching him from inside. Suddenly unwilling to be seen by her, he shrank back into the bushes just outside the entrance, and as she emerged she passed not three feet from him. Her hands were clasped so tightly into fists that the knuckles were white. Her shoulders were shaking, and her face was thrust sharply upward toward the sky, tears streaming down her cheeks. She went straight up the steps into the house without once looking back.

When she had disappeared into the house, Bobby, scarcely daring to breathe. slipped into the boxwood garden. The coffee things were on the table, two cups poured out but untouched. Peter was striding angrily about the lawn, a long switch in his hands, striking at the furniture, the lawn, the shrubs. "She is completely and utterly selfish," said Peter furiously.

Bobby was too frightened to reply.

"All she thinks of is herself," continued Peter. "She never thinks of me." Again Bobby did not reply.

"Doesn't she realize I might want something for myself? Does she think she's the only one who hasn't got what she wants?"

Still Bobby was silent. He looked at the ground near Peter's feet, occasionally daring to glance quickly up at Peter's face. Finally he summoned up the courage to speak.

"What did she say?"

"She started up all that stuff about marriage again. When am I going to get married? All of my friends have married years ago. They all have children now. When is she going to get her grandbabies?"

"You don't think she suspects anything, do you?"

"What is there to suspect? I just said you were moving in with me." Then suddenly Peter flushed and started shouting. "What makes you think she suspects? There's nothing to suspect. Two guys sharing an apartment . . . it happens all the time, and no one suspects anything."

one

26