No secret, thought Gaius Titus. What I want is simple enough.
For a long time, he had thought that near-immortality carried with it the curse of sterility. Now he knew it was simply a matter of time—of growing up.
As he stood up to walk to the bar with Lorraine, he caught a glimpse of himself in the dusty mirror behind the bar. He didn’t look much over twenty-five. But things had been changing in the past fifty years. He had never had a heavy beard before; he had not developed his husky baritone voice until a year before the outbreak of the First World War.
It had been difficult, at first, to hide his immortality. Changing names, changing residences, changing, changing, changing. Until he had found that he didn’t have to change—not deep inside.
People don’t recognize faces. Faces are essentially all alike. Two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth. What more is there to a face? Only the personality behind it.
A personality is something that is projected—something put on display for others to see. And Gaius Titus Menenius had found that two thousand years of experience had given him enough internal psychological reality to be able to project any personality he wanted to. All he needed was a change of dress and a change of personality to be a different person. His face changed subtly to fit the person who was wearing it; no one had ever caught on.
Lorraine sat down on the bar stool. “Beer,” she said to the bartender. “What’s the matter, Les? What’s eating you?”
He studied her firm, strong features, her deep mocking eyes. “Lorraine,” he said softly, “will you marry me?”
She blinked. “Marry you? You? Marry?” She grinned again. “Who’d ever think it? A bourgeois conformist, like all the rest.” Then she shook her head. “No, Les. Even if you’re kidding, you ought to know better than that. What’s the gag?”
“No gag,” said Leslie, and Gaius Titus fought his surprise and shock at his third failure. “I see your point,” Leslie said. “Forget it. Give my best to everyone.” He got up without drinking his beer and walked out the door.
Leslie stepped out into the street and started heading for the subway. Then Gaius Titus, withdrawing the mask, checked himself and hailed a cab.
He got into the cab and gave the driver his home address. He didn’t see any reason for further pursuing his adventures that evening.
He was mystified. How could three personality-facets fail so completely? He had been handling these three girls well ever since he had met them, but tonight, going from one to the next, as soon as he made any serious ventures toward any of them the whole thing folded. Why?
“It’s a lousy world,” he told the driver, assuming for the moment the mask of Phil Carlson, cynical newsman. “Damn lousy.” His voice was a biting rasp.
“What’s wrong, buddy?”
“Had a fight with all three of my girls. It’s a lousy world.”
“I’ll buy that,” the driver said. The cab swung up into Park. “But look at it this way, paclass="underline" who needs them?”
For a moment the mask blurred and fell aside, and it was Gaius Titus, not Phil Carlson, who said, “That’s exactly right! Who needs them?” He gave the driver a bill and got out of the cab.
Who needs them? It was a good question. There were plenty of girls. Why should he saddle himself with Sharon, or Ginger, or Lorraine? They all had their good qualities—Sharon’s social grace, Ginger’s vigor and drive, Lorraine’s rugged intellectualism. They were all three good-looking girls; tall, attractive, well put together. But yet each one, he realized, lacked something that the others had. None of them was really worthy by herself, he thought, apologizing to himself for what another man might call conceit, or sour grapes.
None of them would really do. But if somehow, some way, he could manage to combine those three leggy girls, those three personalities into one body, there would be a girl—
He gasped.
He whirled and caught sight of the cab he had just vacated.
“Hey, cabby!” Titus called. “Come back here! Take me back to the San Marino!”
She wasn’t there. As Leslie burst in, he caught sight of Corwyn, sitting alone and grinning twistedly over a beer.
“Where’d they go? Where’s Lorraine?”
The little man lifted his shoulders and eyebrows in an elaborate shrug. “They left about a minute ago. No, it was closer to ten, wasn’t it? They went in separate directions. They left me here.”
“Thanks,” Leslie said.
Scratch Number One, Titus thought. He ran to the phone booth in the back, dialed Information, and demanded the number of the East End Bar. After some fumbling, the operator found it.
He dialed. The bartender’s tired face appeared in the screen.
“Hello, Sam,” the barkeep said. “What’s doing?”
“Do me a favor, Jerry,” Sam said. “Look around your place for Ginger.”
“She ain’t here, Sam,” the bartender said. “Haven’t seen her since you two blew out of here a while back.” Jerry’s eyes narrowed. “I ain’t never seen you dressed up like that before, Sam, you know?”
Gaius Titus crouched down suddenly to get out of range of the screen. “I’m celebrating tonight, Jerry,” he said, and broke the connection.
Ginger wasn’t to be found either, eh? That left only Sharon. He couldn’t call Kavanaugh’s—they wouldn’t give a caller any information about their patrons. Grabbing another taxi, he shot across town to Kavanaugh’s.
Sharon wasn’t there when Schuyler entered. She hadn’t been in since the afternoon, a waiter informed him, after receiving a small gratuity. Schuyler had a drink and left. Gaius Titus returned to his apartment, tingling with an excitement he hadn’t known for centuries.
He returned to Kavanaugh’s the next night, and the next. Still no sign of her.
The following evening, though, when he entered the bar, she was sitting there, nursing an old-fashioned. He slid onto the seat next to her. She looked up in surprise.
“Bill! Good to see you again.”
“The same here,” Gaius Titus said. “It’s good to see you again—Ginger. Or is it Lorraine?”
She paled and put her hand to her mouth. Then, covering, she said, “What do you mean, Bill? Have you had too many drinks tonight?”
“Possibly,” Titus said. “I stopped off in the San Marino before I came up. You weren’t there, Lorraine. That deep voice is quite a trick, I have to admit. I had a drink with Mack and Corwyn, Then I went over to the East End, Ginger. You weren’t there; either. So,” he said, “there was only one place left to find you, Sharon.”
She stared at him for a long moment. Finally she said, simply, “Who are you?”
“Leslie MacGregor,” Titus said. “Also Sam Spielman. And W. M. Schuyler. Plus two or three other people. The name is Gaius Titus Menenius, at your service.”
“I still don’t understand—”
“Yes, you do,” Titus said. “You are clever—but not clever enough. Your little game had me going for almost a month, you know? And it’s not easy to fool a man my age.”
“When did you find out?” the girl asked weakly.
“Monday night, when I saw all three of you within a couple of hours.”
“You’re—”
“Yes. I’m like you,” he said. “But I’ll give you credit: I didn’t see through it until I was on my way home. You were using my own camouflage technique against me, and I didn’t spot it for what it was. What’s your real name?”
“Mary Bradford,” she said. “I was English, originally. Of fine Plantagenet stock. I’m really a Puritan at heart, you see.” She was grinning slyly.
“Oh? Mayflower descendant?” Titus asked teasingly.