The guard at the gate lodge was the same man as before, but he gave no sign of remembering his earlier brush with Connor. He waved the car on through with a minimum of delay, and a few minutes later Connor was walking up the broad front steps of the house. The place looked much less awesome to Connor, but while ringing for admission he decided that he and Angela would probably keep it, for sentimental reasons as much as anything else. The butler who answered the door was a new man, who looked rather like a retired seaman, and there was a certain lack of smoothness in his manner as he showed Connor to the large room where Angela was waiting. She was standing at the fireplace with her back to the door, just as he had last seen her.
“Angie,” he said, “it’s good to see you again.”
She turned and ran to him. “I’ve missed you so much, Phil.”
As they clung together in the center of the green-and-silver room, Connor experienced a moment of exquisite happiness. He buried his face in her hair and began whispering the things he had been unable to say for what seemed a long, long time. Angela answered him feverishly all the while he spoke, responding to the emotion rather than the words.
It was during the first kiss that he became aware of a disturbing fact. She was wearing expensive yet ordinary perfume—not one of the P-brand distillations of magic to which he had become accustomed on the golden creatures he had dated casually during the past few weeks. Still holding Angela close to him, he glanced around the big room. A leaden coldness began to spread through his body. Everything in the room was, like her perfume, excellent—but not Perfect.
“Angela,” he said quietly, “why did you ask me to come here?”
“What kind of a question is that, darling?”
“It’s a perfectly normal question.” Connor disengaged from her and stepped back suspiciously. “I merely asked what your motives were.”
“Motives!” Angela stared at him, color fleeing from her cheeks. Then her gaze darted to his wristwatch. “My God, Philip, you’re in! You made it, just like you said you would.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t try that with me—remember, I was the one who told it all to you.”
“You should have learned not to talk by this time.”
“I know I should, but I didn’t.” Angela advanced on him. “I’m out now. I’m on the outside.”
“It isn’t all that bad, is it? Where’s Bobby Janke and the rest of his crowd?”
“None of them come near me now. And you know why.”
“At least you’re not broke.” Small solace.
She shook her head. “I’ve got plenty of money, but what good is it when I can’t buy the things I want? I’m shut out, and it’s all because I couldn’t keep myself from blabbing to you, and because I didn’t report the way you were getting on to them. But you didn’t mind informing on me, did you?”
Connor opened his mouth to protest his innocence, then realized it would make no difference. “It’s been nice seeing you again, Angela,” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t stay longer, but things are stacking up on me back at the office. You know how it is.”
“I know exactly how it is. Go on, Philip—get out of here.”
Connor crossed to the door, but hesitated as Angela made a faint sound.
She said, “Stay with me, Phil. Please stay.”
He stood with his back to her, experiencing a pain which slowly faded. Then he walked out.
Late that afternoon, Connor was sitting in his new office when his secretary put through a call. It was Smith, anxious to discuss the acquisition of a collection of antique silver.
“I called you earlier, but your girl told me you were out,” he said with a hint of reproach.
“It’s true,” Connor assured him. “I was out of town—Angela Lomond asked me down to her place.”
“Oh?”
“You didn’t tell me she was no longer a client.”
“You should have known without being told.” Smith was silent for a few seconds. “Is she going to try making trouble?”
“No.”
“What did she want?”
Connor leaned back in his chair and gazed out through the window, toward the Atlantic. “Who knows? I didn’t stay long enough to find out.”
“Very wise,” Smith said complacently.
When the call had ended, Connor brewed some P-brand coffee, using the supply he kept locked in the drinks cabinet. The Perfection of it soothed from his mind the last lingering traces of remorse.
How on Earth, he wondered idly, do they manage to make it taste exactly the way it smells?