"That was my second," he told her.
"Oh, heck, I thought I was cheating you." She sat on the edge of the table and wagged a finger in his face. "Look, mister, you need a rest. Or some excitement. I'm not sure which. Maybe both. Now here's my plan. I make us a cold supper—sandwiches. Then, when it's dark and nobody can see us, we get Oscar out of the garage, and sinfully waste a half gram of rubber off his tires in driving to the Top of the Hill. We haven't done that for years. How about it, mister?"
He hesitated. Helped by the drink, his thoughts were veering. This was a crazy situation. Half his mind was still gripped by a sickening, panicky apprehension for his immediate personal future. The other half was coming under the spell of Tansy's gaiety.
She reached out and pinched his nose. "How about it?"
"All right," he said.
"Hey, you're supposed to act interested!" She slid off the table, started for the kitchen, then added darkly over her shoulder, "But that will come later."
She looked provocatively pretty, in her mock anger. He couldn't see any difference between now and fifteen years ago. He felt he was seeing her for the hundredth first time.
When the sandwiches came, he was reading the evening paper. The disquieting half-and-half mood persisted. He had found a local-interest item at the bottom of the fifth page.
STUDENT PRANKSTERS AT WORK AGAIN
A practical joke is worth any amount of trouble and physical exertion. At least, that is the sentiment of a group of Hempnell College students, as yet unidentified. But we are wondering about the sentiments of Professor Norman Saylor, when he looked out the window this morning and saw a stone gargoyle weighing a good three hundred pounds sitting in the middle of his lawn. It had been removed from the roof of one of the college buildings. How the students managed to detach it, lower it from the roof, and transport it to Professor Saylor's residence, is still a mystery.