"Beautiful," she said. "And terrible. We'll never be able to help them. No matter what we do."
"You agree with Johnson," Michael said. "Is that it?"
"No," she said. "Johnson just repeats what people tell him to say. He hasn't got a thought in his head."
Michael couldn't help smiling to himself, maliciously.
"He's very nice," her voice was rushed a little now and apologetic. Michael thought: Europe has done her a lot of good, she talks so much more softly and agreeably than most American women. "He's very decent and generous and deep down he means so well… But everything's so simple for him. If you've seen Europe at all, it doesn't seem that simple. It's like a person suffering from two diseases. The treatment for one is poison for the other." She spoke modestly and a little hesitantly. "Johnson thinks all you have to do is prescribe fresh air and public nurseries and strong labour unions and the patient will automatically recover," Miss Freemantle went on. "He says I'm confused."
"Everybody who doesn't agree with the Communists," Michael said, "is confused. That's their great strength. They're so sure of themselves. They always know what they want to do. They may be all wrong, but they act."
"I'm not so fond of action," Miss Freemantle said. "I saw a little of it in Austria."
"You're living in the wrong year, lady," Michael said, "you and me, both." They were at the back of the house now and Miss Freemantle picked up the net and rackets while Michael hoisted the two poles to his shoulders. They started back to the garden. They walked slowly. Michael felt a tingle of intimacy alone there on the shady side of the house, screened by the rustling tall maples from the rest of the world.
"I have an idea," he said, "for a new political party, to cure all the ills of the world."
"I can't wait to hear," Miss Freemantle said gravely.
"The Party of the Absolute Truth," said Michael. "Every time a question comes up… any question… Munich, what to do with left-handed children, the freedom of Madagascar, the price of theatre tickets in New York… the leaders of the party say exactly what they think on that subject. Instead of the way it is now, when everybody knows that nobody ever says what he means on any subject."
"How big is the membership?"
"One," Michael said. "Me."
"Make it two."
"Joining up?"
"If I may." Margaret grinned at him.
"Delighted," Michael said. "Do you think the party'd work?"
"Not for a minute," she said.
"That's what I think, too," Michael said. "Maybe I'll wait a couple of years."
They were almost at the corner of the house now, and Michael suddenly hated the thought of going out among all those people, turning the girl over to the distant world of guests and hosts and polite conversation.
"Margaret," he said.
"Yes?" She stopped and looked at him.
She knows what I'm going to say, Michael thought. Good.
"Margaret," he said, "may I see you in New York?"
They looked at each other in silence for a moment. She has freckles on her nose, Michael thought.
"Yes," she said.
"I won't say anything else," Michael said softly, "now."
"The telephone book," the girl said. "My name's in the telephone book."
She turned and walked round the corner of the house, in that precise, straight, graceful walk, carrying the net and the rackets, her legs brown and slender under the swaying full skirt. Michael stood there for a moment, trying to make sure his face had fallen back into repose. Then he walked out into the garden after her.
The other guests had come, Tony and Moran and a girl who wore red slacks and a straw hat with a brim nearly two feet wide.
Moran was tall and willowy and had on a dark blue shirt, open at the collar. He was a glowing brown from the sun and his hair fell boyishly over his eye when he smiled and shook hands with Michael. Why the hell can't I look like that? Michael thought dully as he felt the firm, manly grip. Actors, he thought.
"Yes," he heard himself saying, "we've met before. I remember. New Year's Eve. The night Arney did his window act."
Tony looked strange. When Michael introduced him to Miss Freemantle he barely smiled, and he sat all hunched up, as though he were in pain, his face pale and troubled, his lank, dark hair tumbled uneasily on his high forehead. Tony taught French literature at Rutgers. He was an Italian, although his face was paler and more austere than one expects of Italian faces. Michael had gone to school with him and had grown increasingly fond of him through the years. He spoke in a shy, delicate voice, hushed and bookish, as though he were always whispering in a library. He was a good friend of the Boullard sisters, and had tea with them two or three times a week, formal and bilingual, but today they didn't even look at each other.
Michael started to put up one of the poles. He pushed it into the lawn as the girl in the red slacks was saying in her high, fashionable voice, "That hotel is just ghastly. One bathroom to the floor and beds you could use for ship-planking and a lot of idiotic cretonne with hordes, really hordes of bugs. And the prices!"
Michael looked at Margaret and shook his head in a loose, mocking movement, and Margaret smiled briefly at him, then dropped her eyes. Michael glanced at Laura. Laura was staring stonily at him. How the hell does she manage it? Michael thought. Never misses anything. If that talent were only put to some useful purpose.
"You're not doing it right," Laura said; "the tree'll interfere."
"Please," said Michael, "I'm doing this."
"All wrong," said Laura stubbornly.
Michael ignored her and continued working on the pole.
Suddenly the two Misses Boullard stood up, pulling at their gloves, with crisp, identical movements.
"We have had a lovely time," the younger one said. "Thank you very much. We regret, but we have to leave now."
Michael stopped work in surprise. "But you just came," he said.
"It is unfortunate," the younger Miss Boullard said crisply, "but my sister is suffering from a disastrous headache."
The two sisters went from person to person, shaking hands. They didn't shake hands with Tony. They didn't even look at him, but passed him as though he were not there. Tony looked at them with a strange, quivering expression, incongruous and somehow naked.
"Never mind," he said, picking up the old-fashioned straw hat he had carried into the garden with him. "Never mind. You don't have to go. I'll leave."
There was a moment of nervous silence and nobody looked at Tony or the two sisters.
"We have enjoyed meeting you so much," the younger Miss Boullard said coolly to Moran. "We have admired your pictures again and again."
"Thank you," Moran said, boyish and charming. "It's kind of you…"
Actors, Michael thought.
"Stop it!" Tony shouted. His face was white. "For the love of God, Helene, don't behave this way!"
"There is no need," the younger Miss Boullard said, "to see us to the gate. We know the way."
"An explanation is necessary," Tony said, his voice trembling.
"We can't treat our friends this way." He turned to Michael, standing embarrassedly next to the flimsy pole for the badminton net. "It's inconceivable," Tony said. "Two women I've known for ten years. Two supposedly sensible, intelligent women…" The two sisters finally turned and faced Tony, their eyes and mouths frozen in contempt and hatred. "It's the war, this damned war," Tony said. "Helene. Rochelle. Please. Be reasonable. Don't do this to me. I am not entering Paris. I am not killing Frenchmen. I am an American and I love France and I hate Mussolini and I'm your friend…"