"There's nothing to tell them," he said. "I just didn't go, that's all. So I missed one meeting. Can't they do anything without me?"

"Where were you?"

He went to the stairs. He didn't want to fight with her. He only wanted to think of Mark and the fine, the enchanted, the unbelievable evening he had had. At last, at long last. He wanted to go to bed and dream of it. He climbed the stairs.

"I was with a friend."

He heard her she was big and bony but normally moved soundlessly, like a wraith, in her gray dresses-heard her thud after him, halt at the stair foot. breathing hard.

"What's the matter with you? Have you been drinking? Let me smell your breath."

"Don't be silly," he said.

"But there's something wrong. Don't tell me, I'm your mother, I know you. You're not yourself. You've changed, Floyd."

"No," he said. But then he stopped and looked down at her, dim and gaunt in the hall below. He smiled, knowing she couldn't see the smile. "Yes, that's right. I've changed. I'm happy. For the first time in years and years I'm happy." "What are you talking about?"

"Good night," he said.

"No," she said. "I want an explanation."

"Tomorrow," he said. "I'm tired now. Good night." And he bravely shut the door of his room, shut her out a thing he'd never dared try before, Trembling, he stood waiting for her to come charging up the stairs, demanding, tearing the whole story from him, somehow robbing it of all good, shredding it, finishing it. He waited in the dark, but she did not come. That ought to have worried him, but it didn't. Smiling he undressed and lay down naked in the warm, wet night. Smiling he went to sleep.

"You know, of course," she said to him at supper a few days later, "tha boy is a Jew."

She had fixed scalloped potatoes, his favorite dish. He swallowed. "Mark?"

Her thin mouth twisted, "Who else?"

"Well, I don't see "

"No, you wouldn't see. But others have seen. Mrs. Williams was talking to me at the Supermarket today. She said she'd noticed you with that nephew of Old Pincus, Jake. She says Ernest is a little hurt that you never come over there any more. She doesn't quite understand. Neither do I."

Ernest Williams was a pimply boy Floyd had gone to school with, and who now worked at the city hall filing things. His principal interest was the memorizing of Bible verses. For lack of anything else to do, any other companionship, Floyd had spent evenings with Ernest sometimes. He found it hard to believe now.

"I'll go see Ernest tonight," he lied.

He went to Mark's. And, except for the church meetings, where he always went because he was afraid of angering his mother too much, he spent all his time with Mark. And the more he saw of the dark, quick-spoken boy, the more they talked and smoked-the cigarettes were Mark's: he'd never have dared keep any himself-played chess, listened to records, and drank cold beer-suppose his mother knew that!-the more he needed him. And he could not understand the urgency that drove him back again and again, the need