At any rate, Kintyre had had too much else to think about to pay much attention to a quiet girl. By the time he returned, as Bruce told him, she had left home after a spectacular quarrel with her parents. That was soon repaired—it had only been a declaration of independence—but she had kept her own job and her own apartment since then.
The rambling of his mind soothed him. At the time he did not realize that, down underneath, his mind was telling itself about Corinna Lombardi. It decided that she had few elements of conventional prettiness. She was tall, and her figure was good except that the shoulders were too wide and the bust too small for this decade's canons. Her face was broad, with high cheek-bones and square jaw and straight strong nose; it had seen a good deal of sun. Her eyes were greenish-gray under heavy dark brows, her mouth was wide and full, her voice was low. She wore a black dress, as expected, and a defiant bronze pin in the shape of a weasel.
Then Kintyre had emerged on the landing, and Angelo Lombardi—thickset, heavy-faced, balding—engulfed his hand in an enormous sailor's paw. "Come in, sir, please to come in and have a small glass with us."
Maria Lombardi rose for the Doctor of Philosophy. Her light-brown hair and clear profile told whence her children had their looks; he suspected that much of the brains had come from her too. "How do you do, Professor Keen-teer. We thank you for coming."
He sat down, awkwardly. Overstuffed and ghastly, the living room belonged to a million immigrants of the last generation, who had built from empty pockets up to the middle class. But families like this would eat beans oftener than necessary for twenty years, so they could save enough to put one child through college. Bruce had been the one.
"I just came to express my sympathy," said Kintyre. He felt himself under the cool green appraisal of Corinna's eyes, but could not think of words less banal. "Can I do anything to help? Anything at all?"
"You are very kind," said old Lombardi. He poured from what was evidently his best bottle of wine. "Everyone has been so kind."
"Do you know what his room was like, the past half of a year, Professor?" asked Maria. "He never invited us there."
I rather imagine not, thought Kintyre wryly. "Nothing unusual," he said. "I'll bring you his personal effects as soon as I can."
"Professor," said Lombardi. He leaned his bulk forward very slowly. The glass shivered in his fingers. "You knew my son so well. What do you think happen to him?"