"Barbara Hood—Conrad Haugen."
Almost, I gaped at her. I had expected some gaunt, dowdy fanatic, a little mad perhaps. But she was—well, she was tall and supple and clad in a long dark-blue evening gown that shimmered against her white skin. She was not conventionally pretty, her face was too strong for all of its fine lines, but she had huge blue eyes and a wide soft mouth and a stubborn chin. The light glowed gold on the hair that tumbled to her shoulders.
I blurted something out and she smiled, with a curious little twist that somehow caught in me, and said merely, "Hello, Conrad."
"Glad to be here," I mumbled.
