"Married?" Long popped his head up.
She smiled at him in the rear-view mirror. "Get your head down before you get it blown off. Yes, I said married. I'm not trusting that pug-ugly, beautiful mug of yours out of my sight from now on. And I'm afraid Tom will shoot you himself if you don't make it conventional. Tom's old-fashioned."
"But—I couldn't support you on—"
"A full professor's salary? Don't be foolish. Besides, I'm retiring from my agency. Selling out. That'll set us up housekeeping."
That such a prosaic term as "set us up housekeeping" should send molten lava racing through his veins, did not seem strange to Dr. Hubert Long. How could a man successfully keep his mind on dying when at last a work of art like Julie seemed within his reach? He knew that his plans were irrevocably changed.
Emily Bogarth turned to the phone speaker as her assistant made the circuit and signalled to her.
"On the Hubert Long mission—" the speaker said. "Mission accomplished from this end. I trust you have a likely story for the press?"
"Never mind that. Did it come off as planned?"