school clock that it ought to have been flanked with portraits of George and Martha. “Well, yes, it is too late — almost eleven. Couldn’t get to the office till ‘way past.”
“You’re sure you won’t worry about it when you go to bed tonight? Dear, I so don’t want you to worry! You’re sure you don’t want to telephone and kill the editorial?”
“Sure. Absolute!”
“I’m glad! Me, I’d rather be shot than go sneaking around, crippled with fear. Bless you!”
She kissed him and hurried off to another hour or two of work, while he drove home, whistling vaingloriously.
But he did not sleep well, in his big black-walnut bed. He startled to the night noises of an old frame house — the easing walls, the step of bodiless assassins creeping across the wooden floors all night long.
