'You'd rather not say.' Fabian sounded pettish. 'We're partners, remember?'

'I remember. Some other time,' I said. 'Perhaps. When we both need a good laugh.'

'I imagine that time will come,' he said softly.

He was silent for a while. We sped along through admirably preserved Swiss pine forests.

'Let me ask you a question, Douglas,' he said finally. 'Have you any ties in America?'

I didn't answer immediately. I thought of Pat Minot, of Evelyn Coates, my brother Hank, of Lake Champlain, the hills of Vermont, room 602. As an afterthought, of Jeremy Hale and Miss Schwarz. 'Not really,' I said. 'Why do you ask?'

'Frankly,' he said, 'because of Eunice.'

'What about her? Has she said anything?'

'No. But you must admit - to say the least - you've been most reticent.'

'Has she complained?'

'Not to me anyway,' he said. 'But Lily has hinted that she's puzzled. After all, she flew all the way from England...' He shrugged. 'You know what I mean.'

'I know what you mean.' I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

'You do like girls, Douglas?'

'Oh, come on, now.' I thought of my brother in San Diego and took a turn in the road more sharply than necessary.

'Just asking. These days one never knows. She is an attractive girl, don't you think?'

'I think. Listen, Miles,' I said, more hotly than I would have wished, 'as far as I understand, our partnership doesn't include my hiring out to stand at stud.'

"That's a crude way of putting it.' Surprisingly, he chuckled. 'Although, I must confess, in my own case, from time to time I haven't been averse to the practice myself.'

'Christ, Miles,' I said, 'I've only known the girl a few days.' Even as I said it I mourned for the hypocrisy into which he was forcing me. I had only known Lily four hours before I had gone to her room in Florence. As for Evelyn Coates ...

'If you must know,' I said, 'I don't like the role of public fucker.' Finally, I was approaching the truth. 'I guess I was brought up differently from you.'

'Come now,' he said. 'Lowell, Massachusetts, isn't all that different from Scranton.'

'Who're you kidding, Miles?' I snorted. 'They wouldn't find a trace of Lowell in you if they went in with drills.'

'You'd be surprised,' he said softly. 'You really would be surprised. Douglas,' he asked, 'do you believe me when I tell you that I've grown fond of you, that I have your best interests at heart?'

'Partially,' I said.

To put it more cynically,' he said, 'especially when they coincide with my best interests?'

'Ill go along with that,' I said. 'Part of the way. What are you driving at now?'

'I think we ought to put you in the marriage market.' His tone was flat, as though it was a decision that he had worked over and had come to after hard thought.

'You're missing a lot of beautiful scenery,' I said.

'I'm serious. Listen to me carefully. You're thirty-three, am I right?'

'Right.'

'One way or another in the next year or two you're bound to get married.'

Why?'

'Because people do. Because you're fairly good-looking. Because you're going to seem like a rich young man. Because some girl will want you as her husband and will pick the right moment to make her move. Because as you've told me, you've had enough of being lonely. Because you'll finally want children. Does all that sound reasonable?'

I remembered, painfully, the sense of deprivation, jealousy, loss that I had felt when I had called Jeremy Hale's home and his daughter had answered the phone and the pure young voice had called, 'Daddy, it's for you.'

'Reasonable enough,' I admitted.

All I'm suggesting is that you shouldn't leave it to blind chance, as most idiots do. Control it.'

How do you do that? Will you go out and arrange a match for me and sign a marriage contract? Is that the way it's done in the Principality of Lowell these days?'

'Make your jokes if you want to,' Fabian said placidly. 'I know they come out of a sense of embarrassment and I forgive them.'

'Don't be so goddamn superior. Miles,' I warned him.

'The key word, I repeat, is control.' He ignored my little outburst.

'You married for money, if I remember correctly,' I said, 'and it didn't turn out to be so god-awful wonderful.'

'I was young and greedy,' he said, 'and I didn't have a wiser, older man to guide me. I married a shrew and a fool because she was rich and available. I would do everything in my power to prevent you from making the same mistake. The world is full of lovely, lovable girls with rich, indulgent fathers, who want nothing better in life than to marry a handsome, well-mannered, and well-educated young man who is obviously wealthy enough not to be after their money. In a word, you. Good grief, Douglas, you know the old saw -it's just as easy to love a rich girl as a poor one.'

'If I'm going to be as rich as you say,' I insisted, 'what do I have to bother with the whole thing for?'

'Insurance,' Fabian said. 'I am not infallible. True, we have what seems to you like a substantial sum to dabble with at the moment. But in the eyes of men of real wealth, we're paupers. Paupers, Douglas, playing in a penny-ante poker game.'

'I have faith in you,' I said, with just a little irony. 'You'll keep us both out of the poorhouse.'

'Devoutly to be wished,' he said. 'But there are no guarantees. Fortunes come and go. We live in an age of upheaval. Just in my own lifetime...' Contemplating his lifetime in the speeding car, he shook his head sorrowfully. 'We are caught in cycles of catastrophe. Perhaps right now we are in the lull before the storm. It is best to take what small precautions we can. And without wishing to harp on ugly matters, you're more vulnerable than most. There's no way of being sure that you'll be able to go on forever unrecognized. At any moment, some extremely unpleasant chap may present you with a bill for one hundred thousand dollars. It would be cozier if you could pay it promptly, wouldn't it?' 'Cozier,' I said.

'A wealthy, pretty wife from a good family would be an excellent disguise. It would take a leap of imagination on anyone's part to guess that the well-mannered young man, moving easily in the cream of international society and married to solid old English money got his start by swiping a packet of hundred-dollar bills from a dead man in a sleazy hotel in New York. Do I make sense?'

'You make sense,' I said reluctantly. 'Still - you were talking about mutual interests. What'd be in it for you? You wouldn't expect me to pay an agent's commission on my imaginary wife's dowry, would you?'

'Nothing as crass as that, old man,' Fabian said. 'All I'd expect would be that our partnership wouldn't be allowed to lapse. The most natural thing in the world would be that your wife would be pleased if you would relieve her of the burden of handling her money. And if I know women, and I believe I do, she'd much prefer to have you do it than the usual gaggle of brokers and trustees and hard-eyed bankers women usually have to depend on.'

'Is that where you come in?'

'Exactly.' He beamed, as though he had just presented me with a gift of great value. 'Our partnership would continue as before. Whatever new capital you brought in would of course still be reserved to you. The profits would be shared. As simple and as equitable as that. I hope I've proved to your satisfaction that I am of some use in the field of investments.' 'I won't even comment on that,' I said. The workman is worthy of his hire,' he said sententiously. 'I don't think you'd have any trouble explaining that to your wife.'

'That would depend on the wife.'

'It would depend on you, Douglas. I would expect you to choose a wise girl who trusted you and loved you and was anxious to give substantial proof of her devotion to you.'