“But isn’t that why I’m here? You said—”
Roberts’ blue eyes became darker.
“Why not quote our professional introduction literally?” he asked. “You were trying to amuse yourself, not help yourself. Why did you do it? Why do you do it now?” With difficulty he restrained his anger. “A job should be considered first, before this premature folly.” He stopped, put out his cigarette and waited, only to be startled by Martin’s sudden laughter. He raised his shoulders arrogantly. “You are entertained then, by emotion?”
“No,” said Martin. “Rather, by a grotesque episode.”
“Grotesque?” Roberts seemed more contemptuous than indignant.
“Indeed,” said Martin, inflamed by this dry attitude. “Grotesque. Absurd. A farcical horse-opera of a lost decade revived in different ribbons, different sex. This renovated melodrama is enough to make one sick!—a pale girl with a stack of mortgage documents fastened in her long, blonde hair, arguing for her virtue with a Russian blouse!”
Roberts listened with fascination. His eyes became solicitous. The tenor of the room altered swiftly.
“You could have been, Martin,” he said in a breath and quite excitedly. “Yes, you could have been.” And then, between his lips, and with no intended insult, Roberts spoke the same one word that he had whispered to Martin that afternoon.
Martin looked at the man and knew this exclamation had never been so used. Without changing his expression he reconstructed Roberts’ face from the fragments of thought that had suddenly charged the room. The pink, hairless mask moved closer—without eyes, without nose, with a single hole in the lower part and a single, dreadful sound protruding.
Along the blinds lay a few ravelings of light. The face regained its natural shape. Only an undermovement of greediness and a distant, crying sound remained.