Morey said reprovingly, “Henry, you should have told—well, I mean reminded me about this.”
“But, sir!” Henry protested. “’Don’t tell a living soul,’ you said. You made it a direct order.”
“Umph. Well, keep it that way. I—uh—I have to go back upstairs. Better get the rest of the robots started on dinner.”
Morey left, not comfortably.
The dinner to celebrate Morey’s promotion was difficult. Morey liked Cherry’s parents. Old Elon, after the premarriage inquisition that father must inevitably give to daughter’s suitor, had buckled right down to the job of adjustment. The old folks were good about not interfering, good about keeping their superior social status to themselves, good about helping out on the budget—at least once a week, they could be relied on to come over for a hearty meal, and Mrs. Elon had more than once remade some of Cherry’s new dresses to fit herself, even to the extent of wearing all the high-point ornamentation.
And they had been wonderful about the wedding gifts, when Morey and their daughter got married. The most any member of Morey’s family had been willing to take was a silver set or a few crystal table pieces. The Elons had come through with a dazzling promise to accept a car, a birdbath for their garden and a complete set of living-room furniture! Of course, they could afford it—they had to consume so little that it wasn’t much strain for them even to take gifts of that magnitude. But without their help, Morey knew, the first few months of matrimony would have been even tougher consuming than they were.
But on this particular night it was hard for Morey to like anyone. He responded with monosyllables; he barely grunted when Elon proposed a toast to his promotion and his brilliant future. He was preoccupied.
Rightly so. Morey, in his deepest, bravest searching, could find no clue in his memory as to just what the punishment might be for what he had done. But he had a sick certainty that trouble lay ahead.
Morey went over his problem so many times that an anesthesia set in. By the time dinner was ended and he and his father-in-law were in the den with their brandy, he was more or less functioning again.
Elon, for the first time since Morey had known him, offered him one of his cigars. “You’re Grade Five—can afford to smoke somebody else’s now, hey?”