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BOOK ONE

1

Now the august day has come when he and Secretary of State Orrin Knox are to go to the Washington Monument Grounds and there before their countrymen pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor—and as much cooperation with each other as they can manage.

It is also the day when Edward Montoya Jason, Governor of California, may find out whether he can control the violent elements that have gathered behind his campaign and run rampant in his name.

As he finishes shaving and prepares to rejoin his wife, Ceil, in the charming guest suite of his sister Patsy’s house in Dumbarton Oaks, he is confident of his ability to control the violent. But he does not know just how much cooperation with Orrin there will be.

However, he has given Orrin his word and he intends to keep it:

There will be as much as he can conscientiously contribute.

He will make a genuine effort.

Ambition and the country have a right to expect no less …

Ambition and the country!

How much he has done for both, in these recent hectic weeks that have seen the wildly violent national convention; the mysterious and still unexplained death of President Harley M. Hudson; the accession to the Presidency of Speaker of the House William Abbott; and the hasty reconvening of the National Committee, whose deliberations, surrounded by a violence even greater than that which shattered the convention, have finally resulted in Orrin’s nomination for President and Ted Jason’s for Vice President.

Some have said that Ted Jason, Governor of California, descendant of grandees and shrewd Yankee traders, darling of all that aggregation of uneasy citizens whose hopes and fears are symbolized and given voice by radically activist NAWAC—the National Anti-War Activities Congress—has played too much with violence.

Some—and they include his running mate and the President—have said Ted Jason has put himself in pawn to violence. Some—and they include the lovely Ceil, who only last night abandoned her self-imposed exile at the great Jason ranch “Vistazo” north of Santa Barbara and flew back to be at his side for today’s ceremonies—have said that he has betrayed something essential in himself in so doing. And some—and they include all of these and many more besides, in Washington and throughout the country—have made plain to him their fear that he may never be able to break free from violence and the begetters of violence, no matter how he tries.

Well: those who think that do not know Ted Jason, so favored by heritage, character, brains and physical presence, even Ceil, astute and perceptive as she is behind the screen of her striking blond beauty and sweetly entrancing personality, does not know Ted Jason. Only Ted Jason, he tells himself with a certain grim defiance that shows for a second in the deep-set dark eyes hooded in the beautifully tanned face, crowned by the distinguished silver-gray hair, knows Ted Jason. And what he knows does not dispose him to be frightened of the hobgoblins of minds less self-assured and certain than his.

Not, of course, that his mind has been that way consistently in the past few weeks and days. During the convention when Orrin’s daughter-in-law, Crystal Danta Knox, was beaten by rowdies supporting the Jason cause, thereby losing her unborn son; during the final hours of that same convention when President Harley M. Hudson attacked Ted mercilessly in his final speech from the platform accepting renomination and then named Orrin as his Vice-Presidential running mate; and again when NAWAC’s sullen ranks burst into Kennedy Center and attempted to actually assault the National Committee because it named Orrin its Presidential nominee after Harley’s death—on those occasions Ted Jason had come very close to terror and despair as he contemplated what seemed to be the abyss opening beneath his own and his country’s feet.

But it had not taken him long to recover.

The violence that culminated in Crystal Knox’s tragedy had been, he soon convinced himself, as much Orrin’s responsibility as his. The savage berating by Harley Hudson had been wiped out in an instant in the crash of Air Force One that took Harley to his death: instantly Ted had been back in the running for President. The mood that had prompted the NAWAC-led “Great Riot” at Kennedy Center had melted like magic when Ted appeared after Orrin’s nomination to receive the fervent adulation and obedience of the mob. And now Orrin, making the only compromise possible in view of the circumstances facing him in the nation and abroad, has invited Ted to be his running mate.

So Governor Jason has come safely through; and may yet, if something should happen to Orrin—or even without that, just in the normal course of time and politics—sit in the White House himself.

He realizes as he gives Ceil a quick smile and begins methodically putting on trousers, shirt, cuff links and tie, that all of this could be interpreted as sheer ambition and the ruthless sacrifice of everything to it—and nothing more. It is clear enough what many think, at least others in his immediate vicinity—the vicinity of power. Out in the country and across the world, most of the reaction is more charitable, and more in line with his concept of himself.

KNOX BOWS TO PEACE DEMAND, TAKES JASON FOR V.P., the New York Times has it; GOVERNOR EXPECTED TO USE INFLUENCE TO SEEK SWIFT END TO WARS IN GOROTOLAND AND PANAMA … ANTI-WAR FORCES WIN, the Daily Telegraph agrees; JASON RETURNS KNOX TICKET TO POSTURE OF PEACE … IMPERIALIST WARMONGERS FAIL, Pravda avers; JASON HAILED AS WORLD PEACE HOPE ON KNOX WAR TICKET … RUNNING DOGS OF WAR CRUSHED, the Peking People’s Daily maintains; JASON THWARTS KNOX DRIVE FOR WORLD DOMINION.

An overwhelming majority of the headline writers, editorial writers, news writers, columnists and commentators of his native land, and the world, agree. He finds this very comforting, for it is exactly the way he sees it himself.

There come into his mind once again the bitter conversations he had with President Abbott and with Orrin during the course of the National Committee’s deliberations—conversations in which he kept insisting, patiently and for the most part in good temper, that he spoke for, and was responsible to, only the sincere and worthy elements of the country as they protested with an earnest and genuine dismay the twin catastrophes of Gorotoland and Panama.

For who could not sincerely and genuinely oppose those two ghastly follies, begun by President Hudson and carried forward with a ruthless determination by President Abbott?

When rebel forces in far-off Gorotoland in central Africa had risen in rebellion against “Terrible Terry”—His Royal Highness Prince Terence Wolowo Ajkaje, 137th M’Bulu of Mbuele—they had also killed some forty American missionaries of both sexes and burned a Standard Oil installation in the north of the country. Their leader, “Prince Obi”—Obifumatta, Terry’s cousin and challenger for the throne—had defied the United States, called on the United Nations, the Soviets and the Chinese for help, seemed for a few days to be succeeding in his drive to topple Terry. Then Harley Hudson had sharply escalated the number of American forces in the country—after Harley’s death Bill Abbott had escalated them even further—and now Obi was in exile and Terry appeared to be reestablishing firm control. But American forces were still there, the situation was still fluid, Obi was still trying to gather support wherever he could for a try at reinvasion. At any moment the whole thing could explode again. Who could not condemn it, for all the two Presidents’ pious pretenses that they must “stop Communist aggression?”

Few believed that old chestnut in this day and age.

And Panama. There the situation was even worse, for hostilities were not diminishing in Panama. Clever Felix Labaiya-Sofra, Ted’s almost-ex brother-in-law (his sister Patsy Jason Labaiya’s divorce action being now in its final stages), had formed his Panamanian People’s Liberation Movement, attacked the Canal and launched, also with help from both Communist giants, an all-out drive to rid his country once and for all of the hated Yanquis who had created it. In Felix’s mountainous and difficult terrain American efforts had so far not been successful. Nor had President Abbott’s bluff—for surely it must be one, he wouldn’t dare follow through—to blockade the country against the supplies being shipped in not only by the Communists but by Britain, France and other good friends of the United States.

Bill Abbott’s threat had produced no decrease in hostilities. It had only brought a further uproar in the United Nations, which, in the hectic debates over Gorotoland, had already come very close to expelling the United States because of its racial troubles at home. Most of the UN was still vocally and violently opposed to U.S. actions, even though Gorotoland appeared to be subsiding. Panama most certainly was not.

Naturally out of all this there had come great domestic uneasiness and disturbance throughout America. Ted was willing to concede that the protest had been inflamed by such organizations as DEFY—Defenders of Equality for You—headed by the brilliant, bitter black LeGage Shelby; COMFORT—the Committee on Making Further Offers for a Russian Truce—whose spokesman was one of Ted’s most active supporters, Wyoming’s strange and near-psychotic Senator Fred Van Ackerman; and KEEP—the Konference on Efforts to Encourage Patriotism—headed by its Knight Kommander, oil-rich Rufus Kleinfert. It was true that his own idea of consolidating the three, plus all others who wished to make their feelings known, under the single broad umbrella of the National Anti-War Activities Congress had perhaps increased the tension to some degree. The leaders of NAWAC, some obvious and open, some more clandestine and mysterious, did seem to have a tendency to encourage violent rather than peaceable methods of protest.

But still, Ted was convinced that the vast majority of citizens for whom NAWAC now appeared to speak were decent, loyal, concerned and deeply troubled. And, as he had maintained throughout to President Abbott and to Orrin, he felt he had both a right and a duty to defend and represent them.

He had conceded to the President in their first conference on the subject, shortly before the National Committee began its meetings, that some forces of protest involved in the demonstrations and violence “are not sincere or genuine or perhaps even loyal to the country.

“But there are many, many millions more,” he had maintained, “who honestly, earnestly and sincerely deplore and abhor the policies your Administration is following in world affairs. Now, these people are not kooks. They are not crackpots. They are not wild-eyed radicals or subversive Communists. They are decent Americans, deeply and genuinely disturbed.

“Am I to repudiate them, when they look to me for voice? Am I to say to them, ‘Sorry, run along. I agree with Big Daddy, everything’s 100 percent okay and you’re just a bunch of disloyal rats?’ I cannot do that, Mr. President. I don’t believe it to be true.”

“What do you believe?” Bill Abbott had asked, as others had asked and others would continue to ask. “That’s what I don’t understand. Perhaps if I could, I’d understand better where you think you’re going and what you think you’re trying to do.”

“I think, if you will forgive me,” Governor Jason had said quietly, pointing to the massive Presidential desk, “that I am going right to that desk over there.”

But that had only made the President angry and he had repeated some of the tired old clichés people on his side of the issue liked to repeat:

“These things backfire. Violence feeds upon itself; presently all order and all certainty are swept away. You cannot control these forces.… ”

And at last in desperation he had turned to the personal attack upon Ted so reminiscent of Harley Hudson when he, too, was trying to divert the Governor from his campaign for the White House:

“I wish I could believe you were sincere, Ted. I wish I could believe you know what you’re doing, when you run with that pack. I wish I could honestly think your method would bring us through. I might get out of your way if that were the case. But I cannot for the life of me believe you to be anything but overly ambitious, taking desperate chances with the very fabric of the nation, flirting and perhaps even conniving with forces whose capacities for destruction you just don’t understand. I think you’re the product of your upbringing. I think you think that just because your name’s Jason you can ride any whirlwind, control any holocaust, put any genie back in the bottle. And, my friend, I just don’t think you can.”

“I thank you for worrying about me,” Ted had said dryly. Bill’s reply had alienated him even further.

“Oh, not you. I don’t give a damn about you. But quite a lot of my fellow Americans are involved in what you do—possibly the fate of the country itself is involved. And that makes it a worrisome matter, for me. You have the power to lead or mislead. Right now, you’re misleading, in my estimation, because you’re misled—by ambition and greed for office and people who are taking advantage of those two weaknesses to trap you into being a stalking horse for their own purposes.”

Shortly thereafter, deeply angered and offended, Governor Jason had terminated the interview and withdrawn, depressed by his inability to penetrate so closed and prejudiced a mind.

And then just two days ago, in their final interview before Orrin had chosen him for Vice President, he and Orrin had gone at it again. Orrin too had parroted the clichés, and again he had held his ground—though yielding a bit as a concession to Orrin’s obvious sincerity and his own decision that he must compromise in some degree if he were to receive the nomination and so be able to assist Orrin in bringing the country back to some sane middle ground in foreign policy. For Orrin had been adamant:

“Much as I want to win this election—much as I feel that I can bring my country back to some sort of reasonable sanity if I do win it—I am not going to win it at the price of taking on the ticket a man who either honestly or willfully refuses to recognize the desperate dangers in the violent elements that support him.… There is an element of conspiracy in the country; it isn’t all just innocent, democratic, happy-as-a-lark, spontaneous protest; there are enemies of America who are trying to use it to bring America down. Good God, man, they’d be fools if they didn’t! And one thing they definitely aren’t, is fools.…

“Therefore, if you come on this ticket, Ted, I want from you tomorrow, before the National Committee and before the world, a flat-out repudiation, with no equivocations whatsoever, of NAWAC, DEFY, COMFORT, KEEP and any and all other elements of organized violence in the country. Ever since Harley’s death you have had repeated opportunities to do this and you haven’t done it. Each time there have been qualifications and a lot of tricky words.…

“I won’t have it, Ted,” he had concluded quietly. “I’m simply not going to have it.… Either you cut those connections altogether or you don’t come along with me.

“You decide.”

And Ted had decided.

He had relented and met Orrin’s objections part way, conceding that there might be deliberately subversive elements among his supporters, emphasizing that if so, he did not know of them, and that if they existed, “Of course I shall repudiate them.

“If there is proof of their subversion, I shall denounce them as vigorously and relentlessly as you. If it is impossible to accept their support without jeopardizing the country, of course I shall cut them off.”

“At what point will you admit the danger?” Orrin had persisted. “What sort of proof do you have to have?”

It was then that Ted interrupted the conversation to ask for a couple of hours to consider his answer. He had gone back to Patsy’s and thought it out … and he had hesitated at the moment of lifting the telephone to call Orrin and capitulate, because when all was said and done, he had too much faith in the country. He was confident he could control the violent and bring them back to safer channels of democracy. He felt that Americans had a right to protest policies with which they did not agree. He honestly believed that the great majority who did so were sincere, earnest and loyal.

He actually had his hand on the receiver, about to lift it and tell Orrin to forget the Vice Presidency, when Ceil had called from “Vistazo.” In his happiness over her return—although no quid pro quo had been requested or thought of—he had realized that the only way it could last was if he conformed to what she believed best, and joined Orrin.

Next day before the National Committee and the world he had given his pledge:

“If, in the organization known as NAWAC or in any of its member organizations such as COMFORT, DEFY, KEEP or any of the others—there be any whose purposes are not within the law—who do not wish to keep their dissent within the law and within common decency—then I repudiate them here and now and declare that I wish their support of me to cease forthwith.…

“There is a place for decent and honorable protest and dissent. I shall defend it always. But to those others,” he had concluded sternly—“if others there be—I give notice and fair warning.”

And although this seemed to leave a good many people, including Orrin and Ceil, still wondering exactly where he stood, it seemed to be enough both for the noisy ranks of NAWAC waiting outside the Center and for the Committee. Within five minutes he had been nominated by acclamation to be Orrin’s running mate.…

“My goodness,” Ceil says lightly now, ruffling the hair on the back of his neck, startling him out of the intense concentration into which he has fallen as he stands before the mirror absent-mindedly knotting his tie, “that’s a brown study. What are you doing, going over your speech at the Monument?”

“No,” he says, coming out of it with a smile, turning to take her in his arms and give her a quick kiss. “Other speeches.”

“All right,” she says cheerfully, moving away to pose by the window, “don’t tell me.… How do I look? Like a proper Vice-Presidential wife?”

“Much more beautiful than that,” he says firmly. “In fact, there’s never been another in the same league.”

She chuckles.

“You candidates will say anything for a vote. What are you going to say, by the way? Or is it a secret from me as well as from your great panting public?”

“I hope they aren’t panting quite as hard as they have been,” he says with an odd moroseness in his tone, sitting down on the bed and surveying her thoughtfully from head to foot. “They’ve got me now—or Orrin’s got me. I don’t quite know which.”

“Orrin has, I suspect,” she says more seriously. “Which is the way it should be, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” he asks, again with the odd little melancholy in his voice. “I don’t know. I couldn’t say, at this point. I just wish he were a little less rigid about things, that’s all.”

“And he wishes you were a little less—” she begins, and then softens it with a smile. “You’ll be good for each other. You’ll find the middle ground. I’m sure of it.”

“Are you?” he asks dryly. “That’s nice.”

“You’ve got to,” she says, suddenly serious, coming to sit down beside him, taking his hand. “You simply must. So—what are you going to say? Or must I wait and hear it, just like everybody else?”

He gives her a quizzical look and squeezes her hand. “What is this? Did Orrin put you up to something?”

She shakes her head, returns the squeeze, gets up and moves to an overstuffed armchair by the window; shoves it around briskly so that it faces him; sits down and studies him with a characteristically intent and thoughtful expression.

“Now,” she says, “what’s it going to be? Around corners, or straight down the street?”

For just a second he looks annoyed. Then he laughs.

“We have to leave for the ceremonies in ten minutes. I couldn’t possibly tell you in that time.”

“You could give me an idea,” she says, but he only smiles and shakes his head.

She looks momentarily flustered but manages to respond lightly. “Now, don’t make me beg. That wouldn’t be nice to your poor old wife who’s come all the way from California to be with you in your hour of triumph.”

“Not a poor old wife at all,” he says, rising and coming over to lean down and kiss her again. “Only the most beautiful wife in American public life today. And the wittiest. And the most intelligent. And the most perceptive. That’s what scares me, really—you see through me so.”

“That will be the day,” she says with a rueful little smile, accepting his proffered hand, rising to stand beside him and look straight into his eyes. “I hope, my dear friend,” she says very quietly, “that you are going to be today what everyone hopes and believes Edward M. Jason is.”

For just a moment he returns her look with a gravity as deep and naked as her own. Then the protective curtain of banter she has come to know too well in these recent months of his campaigning for the Presidency comes down once again. She had hoped when she returned last night that it might be gone, and for a while it had seemed that it was. But she realizes now, with a sinking heart, that here it is again.

“If you will continue to be the Ceil Jason I believe you are,” he says lightly, “then I shall be able to be the Ted Jason everyone wants me to be. Is it a deal?”

She returns again the rueful little smile.

“If it’s the best one I’m going to be offered … I guess it is.”

But at this, surprisingly, the banter vanishes and he speaks with an absolute and almost desperate honesty.

“If you were not beside me,” he says softly, “I honestly do not know what I would do, Ceil. I honestly do not.”

Now it is her turn to speak lightly, though he can see she is deeply moved. “I guess that’s a good enough deal for any girl. I’ll try to be worthy of it.”

“Oh, you are,” he says gently, taking her face between his hands. “There’s never been any doubt of that.”

“Hey, up there!” Patsy calls in her raucous way. “Can’t you hear the limousines and motorcycles revving up in the driveway? Your parade’s about to begin, hero. And heroine. Let’s GO!”

And so, not even his wife knows what he will say when he stands before the enormous crowd at the Monument Grounds to commit himself beyond retrieving to the cause of Orrin Knox and the difficult and dangerous road Orrin thinks will lead to national stability and world peace.

So the hour of acceptance comes, bright and hot and clear, and from all the corners of Washington’s two cities—the one shining with legend and hope, the other dark with blasted promise and harsh reality—from all the corners of the nation, all the corners of the earth, the great throng gathers on the Monument Grounds around the stark white obelisk honoring the fatherly first President.

Krishna Khaleel, Ambassador of India; Vasily Tashikov, Ambassador of Soviet Russia, and his “agricultural attaché,” who is really the head of the KGB intelligence apparatus for eastern United States; the British Ambassador and his wife, Lord and Lady Maudulayne; the French Ambassador and his, Raoul and Celestine Barre; and almost all their colleagues of the diplomatic corps, are there.

Somewhere in the enormous multitude that laughs and yells and chatters, shoves and pushes and jostles in amiable contest for position, are LeGage Shelby, Rufus Kleinfert and most of their fellow members of NAWAC. (Only Senator Van Ackerman is missing. Whispering now, he is in his fourteenth hour of filibuster against the Administration-backed Bill to Further Curb Acts Against the Public Order and Welfare.) The Chief Justice is there, his wife already upset because she can tell from the way Mr. Associate Justice Thomas Buckmaster Davis is bustling about near the platform that he must have some preferred assignment she doesn’t know about. Senate Majority Leader Robert Durham Munson of Michigan and his wife, Dolly, are there, along with Stanley Danta of Connecticut, the Majority Whip and Crystal Knox’s father, and more than half the Senate. From the House, Representative J. B. “Jawbone” Swarthman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a possible strong contender for the Speakership next year, and his wife, “Miss Bitty-Bug,” are rubbing elbows not too comfortably with California’s giant young Negro Congressman Cullee Hamilton and his soon-to-be wife, Sarah Johnson. More than two hundred of their fellow House members are also on hand. All members of the National Committee have already taken their seats on the platform.

Television crews are everywhere, and through the crowd there are many television sets in place to bring the ceremonies to the farthest reaches. Police with walkie-talkies are also everywhere, moving constantly, efficiently, yet amicably, their presence giving rise to a few catcalls but otherwise no indication of hostility. At regularly spaced intervals groups of four soldiers stand back-to-back facing their countrymen, guns, bayonets and gas canisters ready. Around the flag-decked platform and the dignitaries’ circle at the foot of the Monument, a tight cordon of Marines stands guard. Overhead the ubiquitous helicopters whir and hover.

Yet somehow, despite these precautions, there seems to be something in the air that indicates they will not be needed. Press and police estimate more than four hundred thousand present on this day that belongs to Orrin Knox and Edward Jason, yet with no visible exceptions they seem almost to be on picnic, so happy and relaxed do they look and sound. Even NAWACs banners are good-natured, and this seems to put the final touches on it:

ORRIN AND TED: THE UNBEATABLES … HEY, HEY, GREAT DAY! BAD TIMES, GO AWAY! … TED AND ORRIN HAVE GOT US ROARIN’ … WE’LL HAVE PEACE TOMORROW AND NO MORE SORROW.…

Presently from far off there comes the sound of sirens, hailed with a great roar of greeting and approval. The sleek black limousine from Orrin’s house in Spring Valley comes along Constitution Avenue in the center of its police motorcycle escort, turns into the Monument Grounds and proceeds slowly to the foot of the obelisk. Two minutes later, more sirens, another great roar. The sleek black limousine from Patsy’s house in Dumbarton Oaks, in the center of its police motorcycle escort, comes along Constitution Avenue, turns into the Monument Grounds, proceeds slowly to the foot of the obelisk.

Out of their cars step the nominee for President and the nominee for Vice President, and their wives, and for a moment in the midst of a wave of sound that seems to blot out the world, they stare at one another with a questioning, uncertain, hesitant yet friendly look. Then Orrin steps forward and holds out his hand, and as the picture flashes on all the television sets, a silence falls.

“Ted,” he says, and his words thunder over the Monument Grounds, the nation, the world, “Beth and I are glad to see you.”

“Orrin,” the Governor replies, “our pleasure.”

Impulsively and with a completely natural friendliness, Ceil steps forward and kisses Beth and then Orrin. Beth gives her a warm hug and then turns to embrace Ted. The television cameras zoom in, the still photographers push and shout and scramble. A shout of happiness and approval goes up from all the vast concourse.

Orrin links his arm informally through Ted’s and leads the way to the platform, through the dignitaries’ circle where friends and colleagues, opponents and supporters, greet them with an eagerly smiling, unanimous cordiality.

“It seems to be a happy day,” Orrin says quietly, words no longer overheard as the police hold back the press. “I’m glad.”

“So am I,” Ted says. “I think we have a great responsibility.”

“We do,” Orrin agrees. “I’m going to make a conciliatory speech.”

“I too,” Ted says. “I had thought of sending it over for your approval this morning, but—”

“Oh, no,” Orrin says quickly. He smiles. “I trust you.” The smile fades, he looks for a moment profoundly, almost sadly, serious. “We’ve got to trust each other, from now on.”

“Yes,” Ted says gravely. “We must. I think we can.”

Orrin gives him a shrewd sidelong glance as they reach the steps of the platform.

“I have no doubts,” he says quietly.

“They’re going to need our help,” Beth says to Ceil as they, too, reach the steps and start up after their husbands.

Ceil smiles, a sunny, happy smile.

“I think,” she says with a little laugh, “that you and I can manage.”

The wild, ecstatic roar breaks out again as they appear together on the platform, standing side by side, arms raised in greeting, framed by the flags and the backdrop of the gleaming white needle soaring against the hot, bright sky.

“Mr. Secretary and Mrs. Knox! Governor and Mrs. Jason! Look this way, please! Can you look over here, please? Mr. Secretary—Governor—Mrs. Jason—Mrs. Knox—this way, please! Can you smile and wave again, please?”

Finally Orrin calls,

“Haven’t you got enough?”

And from somewhere in the jostling tumult below them, of heads, hands, flailing arms, contorted bodies and cameras held high, there comes a plea of such anguished supplication that they all laugh.

“Please, just once more, Mr. President! All together again, please!”

“The things we do for our country,” Orrin says with a mock despair as they all link arms and step forward once more.

“Yes,” Ceil says happily. “It sometimes seems as though—”

But what it sometimes seems to Ceil at this moment will never be known, for they are interrupted.

No one in the crowd hears anything, no one sees anything. For several moments the full import of the sudden confusion on the platform does not penetrate.

It is so bright and hot and sunny.

It is such a happy day.

They cannot quite comprehend, in this bright, hot, sunny, awful instant, the dreadful thing that has occurred so swiftly and so silently before their eyes.

It is not clear now, nor perhaps will it ever be, exactly what those who have planned this intended. But whatever they intended, by some perhaps inadvertent and unintentional miscalculation they have accomplished even more.

A husband and wife—but they are not the same husband and wife—stare at one another for a terrible moment suspended in time and history. Then she begins to scream and he begins to utter a strange animal howl of agony and regret.

Their puny ululations are soon lost in the great rush of sound that engulfs the platform slippery with blood, the Monument Grounds sweltering under the steaming sky, the two cities, the nation, the horrified, watching, avid world.

ORRIN KNOX, CEIL JASON SLAIN … PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE, RUNNING MATE’S WIFE ASSASSINATED IN WASHINGTON … GOVERNOR JASON, MRS. KNOX WOUNDED, NARROWLY ESCAPE DEATH IN MELEE AT MONUMENT GROUNDS … POLICE HOLD FAKE PHOTOGRAPHER SUSPECT … NATION’S LEADERS JOIN IN MOURNING SECRETARY OF STATE AND MRS. JASON … PARTY THROWN INTO CONFUSION BY LOSS OF NOMINEE … CONGRESS IN RECESS … WORLD APPALLED BY NEW VIOLENCE IN U.S …

And the second day:

KNOX, MRS. JASON LIE IN STATE AT CAPITOL … STATE FUNERAL FOR BOTH TO BE HELD TOMORROW … GOVERNOR, MRS. KNOX “IMPROVING,” REMAIN IN SECLUSION … PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SCENE CLOUDED … PARTY HEADS CONFER ON NEW STANDARD-BEARER … PRESIDENT ABBOTT RECONVENES NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR DAY AFTER TOMORROW.…

And the third day:

ORRIN KNOX, MRS. JASON INTERRED AT ARLINGTON IN SOMBER STATE FUNERAL … GOVERNOR, MRS. KNOX UNABLE TO ATTEND … PRESIDENT SAYS GOVERNOR “ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN” TO BE NOMINEE … WORLD STILL STUNNED BY HORROR OF DOUBLE ASSASSINATION.…

And the fourth:

JASON UNANIMOUS CHOICE OF NATIONAL COMMITTEE … FIFTEEN-MINUTE MEETING CONFIRMS “INEVITABLE DECISION” PRESIDENT ABBOTT PREDICTS “OVERWHELMING” JASON VICTORY … PARTY HEADS TO MEET TONIGHT WITH GOVERNOR, STILL IN SECLUSION AT SISTER’S HOME … RUNNING MATE IN DOUBT …

And life and history, as they must, move on.

“Bob,” the President said with a heavy sigh as the long black limousine swung out of the West Gate of the White House promptly at 6:30 p.m. and began its swift motorcycle-escorted glide through the black-draped streets, “sometimes I feel mighty old.”

“Yes,” Senator Munson agreed with an equal heaviness, “and this is the worst time of all. What’s going to happen to this country, anyway, Bill?”

The President sighed again and shook his head.

“I don’t know. I swear I don’t. Except that I do know one thing: you and I and all of us who have the responsibility are going to have to be a damned sight better than we have ever been, if we’re going to bring her through.”

“Will he be better than he’s ever been?” Bob Munson inquired gloomily and answered his question with others. “How can he be, after this? It’s enough to shatter any man. Are you sure the Committee did the right thing yesterday? What kind of a nominee have we got now? And what can he do to pull us through?”

“He’ll get over it,” the President said bluntly, not as unkind as he sounded for a moment: just practical and pragmatic, as he had always been when he was Speaker of the House, and still was in the White House. “Events knock a man down and events stand him up again, in life and politics. He’ll get over it. Things are moving so fast for him that he’ll have to get over it or he’ll go under. And crushed as he is, I can’t see Ted Jason going under. As for the Committee, what else could we do? For the sake of public stability we had to act immediately—there was only one logical claim we had to satisfy—we couldn’t possibly have passed him by at such a time, the country just wouldn’t have stood for it—and who else was there? We didn’t have room to maneuver. It was inevitable.”

“You could have taken the nomination,” Senator Munson said. But the President only snorted.

“Oh, yes. Sure I could. Me and who else? They would have given it to me last week if I’d wanted it, but after this horror and all the sympathy it’s created for Ted, they would have run me out of town on a rail if I’d dared to ask. And anyway, Bob, you know I mean what I say: I don’t want it. I’m going to get re-elected to the House from Colorado and then I’m going to be Speaker again and then I’ll see what I can do from up there on the Hill to help this fellow.” He sighed again. “He’s going to need it.”

“Yes,” Bob Munson said grimly. “That he is.”

“How will things go on your side?” the President asked. Bob Munson, who had been Majority Leader of the United States Senate for twelve years, looked thoughtful as he contemplated his ninety-nine fellow egotists with all their faults and foibles, their good points and their bad.

“Probably quite easily, to begin with. The tragedy will help him a great deal at first—we’ll go along with pretty much anything he wants. Then the checks and balances will reassert themselves and he’ll be in trouble again. But I imagine he’ll do all right until we get over the hump.”

“Same way with the House,” the President said. “With one big if: if he doesn’t go too fast and too far in the direction he seemed to be going before this happened.”

“That’s our personal reaction, Bill,” Senator Munson said. “We didn’t like what we thought he was doing, playing along with the violent at home and apparently favoring a new appeasement abroad. But we’re a little old-fashioned, you know. We’re not really in the trend of things. We still believe in America acting like we think America ought to act. A lot of our fellow citizens don’t agree any more. Ted speaks for them, you know, not for us. How sure are you that Congress won’t follow him, even down that road? I can think of quite a few on my side who will.”

“My side too,” the President conceded. “But I’m not going to let them get away with it.”

Senator Munson gave a wry little laugh as the car and its outriders left Pennsylvania Avenue and started up Wisconsin.

“We think we aren’t, my friend, but the days when you and I could pass miracles on the Hill are pretty well over, I think. It’s going to be a hard fight from now on, particularly if we have a President who’s pulling the other way.”

“Then we’ll just have to keep him from it,” the President said firmly. But again his companion uttered a wry little laugh.

“Mmhmm,” he agreed. “We’ll try, Bill, there’s no doubt of that. But I have a feeling we won’t get much help from him or his staff.”

“That’s why we’ve got to fight like hell to see he doesn’t get himself surrounded with the wrong crowd,” the President said. “This Vice-Presidential nomination is the first step.”

“Yes,” Bob Munson said, “and who’s going to be at this little huddle about it? Who has he called in to advise him?”

“Who has Patsy called in, you mean,” the President suggested dryly. “I got the call from her, not from him.”

“But presumably—”

“Presumably,” the President agreed. “But maybe he really is too shattered to take a hand.”

“Well,” Senator Munson said tartly, “if Patsy Jason Labaiya is going to be the new powder-room President of the United States, then I’ll lead the revolution myself. Anyway, he knew we had to come and see him as soon as possible. It couldn’t be delayed.”

It was the President’s turn to say, “Mmmhmm.”

“I can understand his calling in Roger P. Croy,” he said, grimacing slightly as he thought of Oregon’s silver-haired, demagogic former Governor who had led the Jason forces in convention and in the National Committee. “And Tom August. And even Jawbone Swarthman. But George Wattersill? And Walter Dobius? And LeGage Shelby? And Rufus Kleinfert? And Fred Van Ackerman? My God, man!”

“That’s all right,” Bob Munson said. “We have Bob Leffingwell and Stanley Danta and Cullee Hamilton and Lafe Smith. And maybe one or two more. And that’s not too bad a company.”

“Outnumbered,” the President noted. “But prepared to put up a gallant battle, no doubt. Who do we want for Vice President, Robert? Do you have any ideas?”

“Let me startle you,” the Majority Leader offered, not entirely in jest. “Since you don’t want it, how about me, just as a practical matter of party harmony?”

“You don’t shock me at all,” the President said, “I’m way ahead of you. But we have to convince Ted, you know. And there’ll be plenty of other voices there tonight saying No.”

“And who will they propose?” Senator Munson inquired sarcastically. “Fred Van Ackerman?”

“I won’t be a bit surprised if the name is mentioned,” the President said. His companion looked genuinely shocked.

“That would be insanity. Utter, rabid insanity.”

“We live in an utterly rabid age in which insane things happen,” the President pointed out. “I have the feeling we aren’t more than a hairline away from something like it. These next few days and weeks are going to be critical.”

“These next few hours are going to be critical,” Bob Munson said. A sudden profound sorrow touched his face.

“Ah, hell. I wish Orrin were here.”

“I don’t let myself think about that too much,” the President said. “Or anyway, I try not to. Don’t succeed very well, I’m afraid. It’s too awful.”

“I have no words for it,” Senator Munson said simply. “It’s almost beyond comprehension, still. Do you think that guy they’re holding did it?”

“It looks like it,” the President said. “The FBI tells me there’s a pretty strong presumptive link between this and Harley. His plane crashes, I move in, Orrin’s nominated, Orrin’s killed, Ted moves in. You could make a strong case that somebody is out to arrange the American succession to suit himself. Or themselves.”

“Who is it? The Communists?”

“Now right there,” the President said with a return of a little of his customary wryness, “you’re sounding like the same old reactionary bastard you always sound like. How can you be so conservative and crude?” His expression changed and became somber as their little cavalcade turned off Wisconsin and started west on Massachusetts Avenue, rolling swiftly past the few startled citizens who were on the streets to see its hurried passage. “Could be that bunch in NAWAC. Could be ’Gage Shelby’s friends, or Van Ackerman’s friends, or Kleinfert’s friends. Could be somebody working behind or through them. Could be somebody they’ve never even heard of. Could be Tashikov and the Russians. Could be the Chinese. We intend to find out.”

“And when you find out,” Bob Munson said with a sudden bitterness, “what good will it do you? If it involves the Communists, you can’t convince anybody, the media won’t let you. Walter Dobius will write columns and the rest of his crowd will go wild. You can state it until you’re blue in the face and all they’ll do is pour on the ridicule until they bury you under it. Even now, I suspect, Walter and his friends will still maintain that no outside power could possibly have any interest in the American Presidency or could possibly intervene in any way that would affect it. Particularly so kind and friendly a power as the Communists. Even now. It surpasses belief. But there it is.”

“The special investigating commission and the Justice Department have their orders,” the President said. “If we find out, we’ll state it. Walter and his friends can rant and ridicule all they like. We’ll state it and we’ll keep on stating it. Eventually some of it will get through.”

“But not to enough people,” Senator Munson said. “Never, in these recent years, to enough. They’ve got us on the run, Bill. I’m not so sure as I used to be that we’re going to break through.”

“We’ve got to,” the President said grimly, “and we will.”

“Stout words,” Bob Munson said, “but only as valid as the next President makes them.… I only wish Warren Strickland had a chance.”

At this reference to the humorous, astute and dignified Senate Minority Leader, senior Senator from the state of Idaho and almost certain Presidential nominee of the other party, the President smiled for a second before the unhappy weight of the unhappy day closed down again.

“Warren’s smart. He doesn’t want it, and he won’t run very hard for it.… And anyway, there isn’t a force on this earth that can beat Ted Jason now, with the sympathy vote he’s going to get.”

“Not a force except himself,” Senator Munson suggested. But the President shook his head.

“Not even that. As long as he’s alive and able to stand on his two legs, wave a little, smile a little, open his mouth and state the time of day, he’s going to get it. Ceil gave him that when she went.”

“Gave him that,” Bob Munson agreed somberly. “And took with her—what? She was a marvelous girl, Bill. She may have been the last balance wheel Ted had. Without her, who knows what he will do?”

“I’ll tell you what he’ll do,” the President said with a sudden uncharacteristic contempt that revealed how little he really liked the man he believed would be his successor. “He’ll get himself elected any way he can and then he’ll run this country the best way he knows—for Ted Jason. And devil take principle and patriotism and everything else. That’s what I think he’ll do.” Then he sighed and shook his head. “No,” he said, more quietly, “I mustn’t be that hard on him. Mustn’t be so harsh. There’s got to be more to him than that. We’ve got to believe there is.”

“With Ceil around,” Senator Munson said slowly, “yes. At least there would have been somebody at his side working all the time to keep alive the good instincts, which I think he has, and the good character, which I think he started out with and maybe still has underneath. But now.… I don’t know.” He stared with a sad expression at the trees relaxing limply from the fierce summer day. “I’m really scared, Bill. For the first time in all my years in this town, I really don’t know whether a President of the United States is going to take care of his country. And that’s not a very nice feeling.”

“I don’t go quite that far, yet,” the President said softly, “but I tell you, I don’t rest very easy, either … which is why,” he added abruptly, pragmatism returning, “we have all got to support him and help him just as much as we can. The country’s been traumatized by these deaths—Harley, Orrin, Ceil, all in ten short days—it’s too much, we’re reeling. And the only real element of stability right now is the sympathy for, and the popular support for, Ted Jason. Whatever our doubts, we’ve got to suppress them for the sake of the country. We’ve got to present a united front for the election and then we’ve got to help him be a good President. And the start of all that process,” he concluded as the sleek black limousine and its whirring escort came to Spring Valley, left Massachusetts Avenue and began to climb the gentle ridges toward the comfortable house where the aftermath of tragedy awaited them, “comes right here.”

“I know,” Bob Munson said bleakly. “I hope she’ll understand.”

“Beth Knox?” the President said. “She’ll understand. She always does.”

Dimly she was aware of noise outside, of movement downstairs; somebody seemed to be coming, but she did not know who it was nor did she want to know. She wanted only to be left alone, to sleep, to forget, to die if she could: she did not want to stay in a world of such horror as had come to her three days ago at the Washington Monument. Thirty years of public life had come to this, and if she had her way, she would be quickly out of it and on her way to rejoin the good-hearted, volatile, impatient and idealistic soul at whose side she had lived for so long.

Except that she could sense dimly, through the enormous black mass that seemed to overhang everything, crushing down upon her heart and mind and physical being, that they apparently did not want her to leave. They were apparently trying to keep her alive. They apparently were determined that she should stay with them and share the horror, instead of going away. It seemed terribly, awfully, dreadfully unfair. But it was obvious that this was their intention.

Somewhere back down the day—or was it yesterday, or the day before?—she remembered vaguely that someone had come to the door, looked in, entered, taken her hand gently, said something. Had it been a nurse? Had it been—who had it been? And what had she said?

With a great effort and for the first time since—since it had happened—she made a deliberate effort to force her mind into some coherent pattern; and for what seemed a very long time, while she again became conscious of some stirring and movement downstairs, distant, muffled, infinitely far away, it did not appear that she was going to succeed. All she could think of over and over, like some sickeningly insistent broken record, was a voice desperately demanding attention—some sort of amused reaction to this—a quick half-heard retort by someone she sensed rather than knew to be her husband—the start of a laughing rejoinder in a woman’s voice—a sound, a flash, a blur, a searing pain in her right side—and then horror, back again full strength as it had returned to overwhelm her ten thousand times while she drifted heavily in and out of sedated sleep. She wanted to struggle, cry out, move, protest. But bleak and awful came the knowledge that it would do no good, and that the terrible dead weight that suddenly sagged against her, spurting blood, would never again respond to human voice or know a sentient thought.

But now the noises below seemed louder, more insistent; and slowly, desperately, protesting every step of the way yet beginning at last to bow to the automatic disciplines of a trained and well-ordered mind, she began at last the long return to the condition of knowing she was Beth Knox, who had a certain being, a certain personality, a certain way of thinking and looking at things—and a certain responsibility. She had never wanted responsibility again, but the habits of three decades of public life were too ingrained to permit her to drift away forever. Finally they were beginning to reassert themselves.

For the first time in seventy-two hours she had a conscious, deliberate thought that moved in a consistent uninterrupted progression. She remembered who it was who had come in and what she had said. It was Lucille Hudson, herself only ten days widowed, and what she said was what had to be said, the only thing that could be said to a public wife in their condition. The words did not come back too clearly to Beth even now, but the import was the import neither could escape. The import was Duty; and to Duty, after so long a time in public life, there could be only one answer, and the answer was Yes.

So she must rouse herself and try. Louise had managed and so had others; and so could Beth Knox. She had been unable to attend the funeral for on that day she was still, although her wound was beginning to mend, in such shock that the doctors would not permit it; and she might not have attended anyway, for hers had been a genuinely close and loving marriage, and instead of going through the public charade the more honest thing might well have been to stay away. It was a choice she had not had to make, so she would never know.

But now she did have a choice to make, and knowing it, knew her decision already. She could not leave the hurrying world, for all the horror and pain and anguish it had brought her in a second’s frightful passage. She had to come back, for much still depended upon Elizabeth Henry Knox.

Now the noise and stirrings below were still louder, she knew people were entering the house, knew instinctively that they must be coming to see her; knew that somehow she would find the strength to see them, whoever they might be. With an effort that at first seemed enormous but decreased in difficulty as she proceeded, she raised herself slowly to a sitting position—swung slowly around until her feet rested on the floor—suddenly saw her face in a mirror, red-eyed and swollen with weeping—stopped abruptly and felt for a moment that she could not possibly go on—but did, because she knew she must.

A few minutes later when her daughter-in-law, Crystal, and Lucille Hudson knocked gently and entered, she was standing and already partially dressed. A few minutes after that, trembling with the physical effort and emotional strain but with head held high and mind steadily clearing, she was able to come slowly down the stairs on her son Hal’s arm and greet her guests as Beth Knox should.

“Dear Bill,” she said managing from somewhere a reasonable ghost of her old, comfortable smile as she saw their sadly troubled faces, “dear Bob—what can I do to help?”

He too had heard voices, much the same: somewhere an outcry, exaggerated in its intensity, begging their attention—a quick rejoinder by someone he knew must be Orrin Knox—the start of a laughing reply by someone he knew (though even now he fought himself desperately not to admit it) must be his wife—a sound, a flash, a blur, a jarring impact, momentarily too fast for pain, in his right shoulder—and at his side a strange little cry, a flowering mist of blood, a crumpled movement so fast he could not understand what it was—until it was finished, when it became all he could understand, over and over and over again, without surcease or mercy.

So passed three days in which the world moved on without Edward Montoya Jason, though high and mighty were the proceedings in his name. Dimly he had been aware—for Patsy had tried to rouse him to go and would have succeeded had the doctors not intervened with emphatic alarm—that a funeral was held. Dimly he knew—for Patsy crashed triumphantly through his drugged cocoon to tell him—that he was now his party’s nominee. Dimly he sensed—though his exhausted mind could not really grasp the fact—that he had become someone very important, even more important than Jasons always thought themselves to be. Dimly he understood, with a great and infinite weariness, that this meant that the world that had killed his wife would now be demanding many things of him. And flatly, furiously, with an almost animal fear, he rejected them all and turned his back upon the world.

But now three days were gone and this was the fourth; and somewhere below, in and around the big old house in Dumbarton Oaks, he began to realize that there was a stirring, a restlessness, a change, and knew instinctively that it was for him. People were coming and he knew they were coming to see him. He did not know who they were, or what they could want (although Patsy had tried to tell him this morning somewhere in the haze of steadily decreasing sedation), but he knew, as surely as Beth had known, that he must respond.

Abruptly he had a sudden sharp revelation of where he was and who he was. In that moment, for the first time since the horror at the Monument Grounds, Ceil Jason really began to die and Ted Jason began to live again.

For what purpose, however, he did not really know as he got slowly and painfully out of bed, his shoulder still on fire, his mind still shuttered, his heart still stunned. He realized now that he was the Presidential nominee, and off in some other world this probably should make him very pleased, for God knew he had desired it more fiercely than he had ever desired anything. He realized also that this meant he must make decisions, choices, resume the active direction of his own destiny and that of his country. But one thing more he realized now, implacable and without appeal, and that was that he must do all this without Ceil. And without Ceil, as he had told her just before they left the house for the last time together, he did not know what he would do.

Yet it was obvious that he must do something. The noises and stirrings and excited sounds were growing louder. It was apparent that quite a few people must be arriving. He had nearly completed his slow and awkward dressing before he finally remembered Patsy’s words and understood the reason. And then only because he happened to think of the words “running mate,” and remembered finally that he had none.

Struck by the fact, which suddenly hit him with all its implications, he paused and listened to the babble below and then went slowly over to the window and looked down at the porte-cochère and the winding drive. The parking area was crowded with the paraphernalia of an obsessively communicative age. Sound trucks were drawn up, television cameras were in place, reporters he recognized stood about. The house was under siege and now he knew what he was supposed to do and why they all were here. They had come to report his first decision.

For a moment he felt a sharp annoyance with his sister, who presumably had arranged it all; but then he knew, with an increasingly swift return of political awareness, that of course it had not been Patsy, it had been the imperatives of the situation. A Vice-Presidential nominee had to be chosen and chosen at once, the moment the doctors declared him able. He wondered briefly why they had not given him more time, but decided that perhaps it was some kind of therapy. Maybe they felt it was best that he be brought out of grief with the abrupt challenge of having to do something. If that was it, he told himself with a certain wryness, it seemed to be working. For the first time in seventy-two hours he was looking forward instead of back. A little excitement and anticipation began to stir in his heart. Who was waiting and what did they seek of him? And what did he, the nominee for President, intend to do about it?

Carried by the excitement of this he moved back, more quickly now, to the closet, completed his dressing with tie and coat, turned toward the door just as Patsy knocked vigorously and called out, “Ted, can you come down soon? Some VERY interesting people are here to see you!”

“I’ll be down in a minute,” he called back, sounding, she was thrilled to hear, much like himself again. “Make them comfortable.”

“I’ve had a conference table set up in the ballroom. I’ll tell them you’re on your way.”

“I’ll be right along,” he promised and turned back to study himself in the mirror for a moment. His eyes were dark-ringed and sad, his face drawn and thin beneath its tan, but the over-all impression of silver-haired, commanding force and dignity was unimpaired. If anything, sorrow seemed to have made it more impressive. For just a wry, split second he thought: Tragedy becomes me. And instantly was overcome with shame that he could think such a thing, even in jest, at such a time. Sorrow rushed back upon him, adamant, implacable, overwhelming. He sat slowly down on the bed again, his head in his hands.

“TED!” Patsy bellowed from below.

Somehow he stood up.

Somehow he moved to the door.

Somehow he managed the stairs.

Somehow.

“There are times,” Frankly Unctuous said in his rich plum-pudding tones, looking out with a simple candor from the little screen as he concluded the nightly news roundup with the usual portentous moments that were officially designated “Opinion,” “when the world narrows down.

“Tonight is such a time.

“Even as we bid one another farewell on yet another fateful day in the onrushing history of this confused but well-meaning land, party leaders and top advisers of Governor Edward M. Jason are gathering at his sister’s home here in Washington to confer with him on the selection of a Vice-Presidential candidate.

“Few meetings in recent years have been more important for the nation than this consortium of brains and influence. What they say to the candidate for President—what he says to them—the decision he reaches after considering their views and matching them against what he believes best for the country—all will have vital bearing on our nation and the course she is to pursue from now on in world and domestic affairs.

“Dreadful as were the events of four days ago which struck the late Secretary of State Orrin Knox from his party’s leadership, it is yet possible for many to anticipate a turning of enormous significance for American life. Feeling, as they do, a deep horror and sadness at his loss; sympathizing, as they do, deeply and sincerely with his bereaved family—still they can perceive, awful though the occasion may be, some glimmering of hope for the future that could give the terrible sacrifice a meaning worthy of its shattering dimensions.

“It could, in fact, well mean an end to all those dangerous policies of foreign intervention, manipulation and war with which the Secretary and the last two administrations in which he served were so closely identified in popular thinking both here and abroad. It could mean the turn toward final peace with which Governor Jason is so closely identified, and for which he had been expected to work as Vice President in a possible Knox Administration.

“Now his subordinate position has been changed by some hand or hands as yet unknown; and shocking and unexpected as the transformation has been, still it has brought what almost amounts to a revolution of hope to the nation and the world.

“Now the war in Gorotoland, begun on what many have regarded as the phony pretext that American citizens and American big business investment in that far-off African land had been attacked, can be speedily concluded on a just and honorable basis. Any such conclusion would, of course, as a majority of the United Nations clearly desires, result in the removal of Prince Terence Ajkaje from the throne to which he has now been precariously restored by American arms, and the substitution of his enormously popular cousin, Prince Obifumatta, now temporarily in exile, as head of a truly liberal and democratic government.

“Now the war in Panama, launched by the last two administrations to prevent the Panama Canal from being returned to the hands of its rightful owners, the Panamanian people, can also be speedily wound down on a similarly just and honorable basis. This would, of course, mean recognition by the United States of the legitimate claims of the Panamanian People’s Liberation Movement led by Felix Labaiya-Sofra. It would mean the establishment of the PLM as the ruling force in the nation, with Señor Labaiya as President. It would mean a speedy end to the present Administration’s imposition of a unilateral blockade on such friends of America as Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union, who are shipping supplies to the PLM. It would mean that democracy, for the first time in many decades, would once more control the Isthmus.

“It is true, of course, that Governor Jason has not yet been elected President, and that if he is, there will still ensue a transition period of more than two months before he can be inaugurated. But every indication now is that he will win triumphantly, and that his very presence at the head of the ticket will have an immediate and enormous influence on President Abbott and the remaining five months of the present Administration.

“And if Governor Jason has a Vice-Presidential running mate who agrees with him 100 per cent, of course, his influence will be even greater. The party will speak with one leadership and one voice and after the election the nation will do the same. There will be no divided counsels, no hesitations, no holding back from the great goal of peace.

“That is why Washington waits tonight, tense and anxious, for the outcome of the fateful discussions with the Governor. Will he yield to those who may propose a running mate from the party’s war camp, on the spurious argument that this would somehow bring about ‘party harmony’ and ‘national unity?’ Or will he decide, with the courage and integrity that have always characterized his public career, that he must have beside him as second-in-command and political heir a man as firmly and selflessly dedicated to genuine world peace as he?

“Washington waits—the nation waits—the world waits.

“None of the three really expects to be disappointed in Edward Montoya Jason.”

For a few moments as he reached the bottom of the stairs, she was all he could see. All the rest were a blur, no other face came into focus. Their eyes met, hers filled with tears, his responded. Spontaneously she held out her arms and he came forward. For a brief and fleeting moment they were united in grief, before politics, ambition, philosophical divergence and the crowding world rushed in again.

“Ted,” she said, almost in a whisper. “I hope—I hope—”

“Yes,” he replied, equally low. “I’m managing. And you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think so. I think so.”

“Good,” he said, and before he could say more,

“WELL!” Patsy exclaimed brightly. “Here’s everybody, so I guess we can get to work!”

For a second longer they remained staring into each other’s eyes. Then he shook his head, a quick, regretful movement as if to say, You see? I have no choice.

And from somewhere in the accumulated depths of character Beth was able to nod quite matter-of-factly and say calmly, “Why, of course, Patsy. So we should.”

At this, seeming to gain strength from her example, he was able to move forward, hand outstretched, and begin the ritual of greeting. Blurs became faces, faces became collections of ideas, beliefs, principles, prejudices, personal and political ambitions and associations: the living, powerful people with whom he must organize the future.

“Mr. President,” he said gravely, and Bill Abbott shook his hand with all the dignity of Mr. Speaker and Mr. President combined. Senators Bob Munson, Stanley Danta and Lafe Smith came next, standing together in a concerned yet friendly grouping; Tom August, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with his usual awkward, shy and nervous manner, almost shuffling forward; Bob Leffingwell, focus of so many bitter emotions from one side during the time when the Senate defeated his nomination for Secretary of State—focus of bitter emotions still from the other side, now that he had swung over to support of the Administration and its war policies; Walter Dobius, stocky and stern and, as always, pompous and faintly, yet inescapably, smug; George Harrison Wattersill, that glamorous and well-publicized young attorney, defender of the sick, the misfit, the lost and the headline favored; Cullee Hamilton, California’s powerful young Negro Congressman, his handsome face and thoughtful dark eyes troubled and unhappy; J. B. “Jawbone” Swarthman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, his usual ebullience momentarily suppressed but likely to break out again at any moment; Roger P. Croy, ex-governor of Oregon, smooth and bland and confident in his power with words and crowds; LeGage Shelby, chairman of Defenders of Equality for You (DEFY), dark and scowling, particularly when his eyes met those of his onetime friend and college roommate, Cullee Hamilton; Rufus Kleinfert, pasty-faced and dumpy, head of the Konference on Efforts to Encourage Patriotism (KEEP); and Senator Fred Van Ackerman of the Committee on Making Further Offers for a Russian Truce (COMFORT), carefully standing apart from his fellow legislators, insolent and unyielding.

This was the oddly assorted aggregation that would help him select a Vice President. There shot across his mind the thought: God help me, I don’t believe it. But the old habit of command was beginning, though still somewhat raggedly, to return. It was with a passable authority that he said politely, “Mr. President, Mrs. Knox, gentlemen, if you will come into the ballroom and be seated, please, we can begin.”

There would come a time when he would look back and decide that to accept this strange hodgepodge of people and not demand the removal of some of its more extreme members such as LeGage Shelby and Fred Van Ackerman might very well have been his first decision of all, and perhaps his most serious and fateful one, considering all that was to flow from it. But he was in no mood or condition to understand this now, and it did not occur to him until much later, when it was too late.

When they were seated around the long conference table that Patsy had directed the servants to put together from two dining tables and a green baize cloth, himself at one end, the President at the other, a silence fell and he realized that they were all staring at him intently. The President broke the silence to ask the question they all wanted to ask.

“How are you feeling, Governor?”

He managed a small smile, for their interest was genuine enough and, for the moment, quite removed from politics.

“Not—too bad,” he said and added slowly, “under all the circumstances.” Then he seemed to draw himself together, took a deep breath and leaned forward to speak as he knew they wanted him to speak.

“I want to thank you all,” he said gravely, “for your concern for me at this time, which I believe far transcends any political situation in which we find ourselves. I know how you must be feeling about my—my bereavement—and I want you to know that I am deeply grateful for your sentiments. I thank you and I know that—” for just a second his voice broke, but he recovered and went on firmly—“she is grateful to you too.…

“I know also,” he added, and for a moment his eyes met Beth’s and she was able to murmur her thanks, “that I speak for Mrs. Knox as well in expressing our gratitude to you. It is a great help to us both.…

“Well, then—” his tone deliberately stronger and more impersonal—“so you are here, I take it, to give me advice on the Vice-Presidential nomination. I don’t know who invited you—” Patsy shifted slightly in her chair, halfway down the table, and he smiled slightly—“but it was a good move, Pat. I have to make a decision and I know it can’t be delayed, and so I think it is just as well you are all here to help me. I had always thought,” he added, a certain dryness entering his tone, “that this sort of thing was done in a series of small conferences instead of one large one, but maybe these are unusual times and we should use an unusual method. Anyway, you are here and I am happy to have your ideas.”

He stopped and again there was a silence as they all watched him intently. Again it was the President who broke it with his customary directness.

“You have no one to suggest yourself, then.”

He shook his head and began to make some frivolous rejoinder—“If you only knew—” perhaps, or, “I can’t even think straight yet”—or something of that nature. But he knew this revelation of the chaos that lay behind his outward calm would only shock and dismay them. And they wouldn’t believe it anyway. He suppressed the impulse and continued to perform as he knew they wanted him to.

“Not at the moment, no. I had rather get your thinking first. Possibly, if I might suggest, Mr. President: there seems to be a pretty clearly defined division here, just as there was in the convention and the Committee and, indeed, in the country. So why don’t you act as spokesman for the one group, if you like, and someone else—Governor Croy, possibly, or Senator August, or whoever is agreeable—might speak for the others. With everyone, of course, having the right to state divergent views if he so desires. Is that agreeable?”

He looked around the table, took silence for consent.

“Very well then, Mr. President. You have the floor.”

For a moment the President did not reply, staring thoughtfully at Ted Jason as he leaned back, appearing tired but effective: handsome, dignified and in command. He looks the part, anyway, the President thought dryly. Maybe I can wake him up. Maybe I can wake them all up.

“I think,” he said slowly, and to him, too, they gave their intently watchful attention, “that the most logical candidate for Vice President, the one who would be the most popular choice and would do most to unify the party and the country, would be the one who best exemplifies the philosophy and the character of the late candidate for President. I think you’d be making a mighty smart move if you took Mrs. Knox.”

There was a complete, stunned silence as he sat back and stared impassively around the table at expressions, which ranged from Lafe Smith’s sudden grin to LeGage Shelby’s scowling dismay to Patsy’s scornful disbelief. He had invited an explosion and knew it was coming. Its source did not surprise him.

“What kind of crap,” asked Fred Van Ackerman with a deliberate insolence, “is that?”

“Spoken like the boor you are,” the President said coldly, and whatever fragile peace had existed in the room was abruptly ended.

“Now, Mr. Chairman,” Senator Van Ackerman said, and his voice suddenly sailed up in the sharp psychotic whine his colleagues in the Senate knew all too well, “now, Governor, I don’t think you should permit that kind of language. I don’t think you should permit this used-up old man who temporarily fills, and yes, unworthily fills, the office of President, to talk like that. He is unworthy, Mr. Chairman, and he is politically passé. He is on his way out and the sooner the better. I suggest, yes, I suggest, that he be asked to leave this conference, Governor, Mr. Chairman, unless he can offer something that makes some sense and has some bearing on what we’re trying to do here. I so move, Mr. Chairman!”

“Now, Mr. Chairman—” Senator Munson began angrily through the babble that began all around the table. But the President’s calm voice got through before Ted could act; if he had been going to act.

“Let him talk, Governor. Let him rave on. This is what we are confronted with in this party and we had all better have it spelled out clearly for us once again before you make your decision. I offer you a true lady, one of the great ladies in American public life, and back comes this rude, crude, intolerant, boorish behavior. That summarizes the issue for you, right there. We might as well realize it right now.”

“Governor,” Senator August said from down the table in his hesitant way. “Mr. Chairman, if I might say something—?”

“Yes, Senator,” Ted Jason said, and added in what seemed, curiously, almost an afterthought, “the meeting will be in order, please. Proceed, Senator.”

“Well, Mr. Chairman,” Tom August said, “I don’t want to inflame the discussion any further, but I do think, if the President will forgive me, that there is much more to the issue than the unfortunate remarks of the Senator from Wyoming. I do regard them as unfortunate, Mr. Chairman,” he added stoutly as Fred gave him a black look, “and I agree with the President that they probably deserved the epithet ‘boorish.’ But, Mr. Chairman—I don’t think we should permit our discussion here to be influenced too much by unfortunate turns of phrase or ways of speaking, for no doubt we will all be guilty of some exaggerations as we go along. I think we must stick close to what the real issue is, and on that I offer you what may be a simplification, but which I nonetheless believe to be a sound one. The issue is peace or war, Mr. Chairman. It is as simple as that.

“What has confronted us all along?” he asked, as all down the table his listeners either nodded agreement or looked stubborn and uneasy, according to their philosophies. “In the whole long-running argument over this party’s leadership? That argument really began, you will remember, with the nomination—and rejection—of Mr. Leffingwell, here, to be Secretary of State. It appeared to go in one direction when President Hudson succeeded to office and began the actions in Gorotoland and Panama. It appeared to go even further that way when you, Mr. President, moved into the White House and increased and made more emphatic both those involvements. And it appeared to go entirely in your direction when the recent convention nominated President Hudson for re-election and then, after his tragic death, nominated Secretary Knox for President.

“But you will remember, Mr. Chairman,” he said quietly, “that each of these steps along the way was violently and bitterly opposed by almost a majority of the party and of the population; and you will remember that their opinion was so strong and so inescapable that the late Secretary was virtually forced to accept as his running mate Governor Jason, the man who now, through yet more tragic fate, carries our party’s standard as Presidential nominee.

“There was nothing open and shut about it at any point along the way. The ‘war party’—if I may use that invidious term for convenience only—was opposed every foot of the road. Its control was marginal at best—tenuous, fragile and uncertain. At each turning point it could have reversed itself and changed the pattern of events; and great numbers of the citizenry wanted it to turn back. Now we have come to one more turning point, tragic and unexpected but nonetheless here before us—a fact. And we have what may be the last, the only, the ultimate chance to turn back. I think,” he said softly, peering about the table in his gentle, almost wistful fashion, “that is the real issue, Mr. Chairman and Mr. President. It is war or peace, and the choice of Vice-Presidential candidate will indicate to the country and the world more surely than anything else which it is going to be.”

He paused and looked about vaguely for water. Patsy rang a bell, there was a brief pause while two maids hurried in, distributed pitchers and glasses along the table, withdrew. Tom August drank slowly; wiped his lips carefully on a handkerchief; went on, his audience silent and intent.

“It seems to me, Mr. President, that if a so-called ‘war party’ candidate agreeable to you and some others in this room were to be chosen, a great feeling of dismay and disaster would sweep over the country. Not all the country,” he said hastily as the President gave him a sudden frown in which skepticism and annoyance were equally mixed, “but a very substantial portion of it. Indeed, I think it may safely be said, a majority of it. Whereas a so-called ‘peace party’ candidate—”

“Ah,” said Lafe Smith with a knowing intonation, and for a second Senator August looked quite offended.

“You can say, ‘Ah,’” he retorted with a rare asperity, “but the fact remains that a Vice-Presidential candidate leaning generally in that direction is obviously what the country desires. At least,” he added with a defensive irony, “in my humble estimation.”

“Mine, too,” Fred Van Ackerman said with a harsh contempt. “It’s so obvious I don’t see why we have to waste time on a lot of pious crap about it.”

“I beg your pardon—” Tom August began, his face flushing. But Bob Munson forestalled him.

“You people fascinate me,” he said. “You cannibalize each other, don’t you? You can’t even be decent with each other long enough to achieve what you all want. It’s amazing. And very revealing.”

“We’ll achieve what we want,” LeGage Shelby said with an ominous scowl. “Don’t you worry about that.”

“Yess,” Rufus Kleinfert agreed in his peculiar accent. “Don’t you worry about that.”

“I’m worried as hell about that, if you want to know,” Senator Munson said bluntly. “I can’t imagine anything worse for the country than to have this ticket beholden from top to bottom to people like you and what you represent.”

“And what’s that, Senator?” Fred Van Ackerman inquired coldly. “It’s only common sense, isn’t it? It’s only what’s best for the country, isn’t it? It’s only peace, which is what this country wants, from top to bottom and from one end to the other. That’s all it is, Senator. Peace, if you aren’t too stupid to know it.”

“This is one of your principal sources of strength, Governor,” Bob Munson said, and his reference called their attention suddenly to how silent Ted Jason was being through all this. “I hope it pleases you.”

For a moment Ted did not answer, seeming far away and abstracted. Then he shook his head as if to clear it and spoke with a calmness that reassured them all, even those who were greatly fearful of what he might decide this day. The man who would be President had to be calm: how else could they?

“I think I can assess my support for what it is, Senator. Insofar as it sincerely represents the desire of all patriotic Americans for peace, I am not worried about it. I am, in fact, proud to have it. Senator August, are you through?”

“Well,” Tom August said doubtfully. “Well—yes, I guess I am. I guess I have stated the issues, basically. As I see them, anyway.”

“Good,” Ted Jason said. “Mr. President, did you wish to add anything further in support of your position and your nomination of Mrs. Knox?”

The President gave him a look as thoughtful as his own and spoke with an equal calmness.

“No,” he said slowly, “I don’t think I have much to add—except possibly this. We are still confronted here, as Tom says, with exactly the same issues we were confronted with at the convention and in the National Committee. Violence masquerading as peace on the one side, a genuine concern that the country remain strong in spirit and in fact on the other. And, as before, no real compromise possible between the two unless there is genuine desire for compromise on the part of those most directly involved.” His face became grave, his voice touched with sorrow. “Until four days ago, that meant two people. Now it means just you. Maybe you should tell us how much you want to compromise between these two points of view. Our opinions and desires, after all, are probably academic alongside yours.”

But Governor Jason, as the President surmised, was not to be drawn into a revelation of his position just yet.

“I am open to suggestion at this point,” he said quietly.

“Very well, then,” the President said, somewhat tartly. “I have suggested Mrs. Knox as the best candidate to unify the party and the country. How about it?”

There was an uneasy, and in some cases angry, stirring along the table and before anyone could respond Roger P. Croy had his hand up and his mouth open.

“Governor—” he said. “Governor—if I may. It seems to me there are further things to be said before we can proceed—you can proceed—to a decision. Possibly also there are other candidates to be proposed. With all respects to one of the most gracious, most attractive and most intelligent ladies in American politics”—Beth gave him a wry smile, but he was, as usual, impervious—“the President’s suggestion may be too pat. It may be too neat for the grave problems that confront the country. It may be one of those solutions which, seeming on their faces perfect and profound, exacerbate differences rather than settle them. How would the selection of Mrs. Knox, one wonders, settle anything, any more than the selection of her husband did?”

“He had the choice,” Cullee Hamilton said with a sudden anger, “and he chose Ted Jason. You thought that solved plenty at the time. Now that your boy is on top, you don’t see it that way. You’re a great man, Governor Croy. You’ve got real character, that’s for sure.”

“Well, Mr. Chairman,” Roger P. Croy said blandly, “I really see no need to indulge in personalities. I am sure the Congressman will not deny that the situation has sharply and tragically changed from what it was when the late Secretary of State had the choice he refers to. For one thing, even conceding Mrs. Knox’s many virtues—which all of us concede, all admire and none deny—there is no single figure of her husband’s stature remaining on the national scene to represent his point of view. Unless, of course,” he said with a sudden soft blandness, “the President himself might wish to step down and run for Vice President, as a contribution to national unity?”

But at this, to Roger Croy’s obvious delight, both Ted and the President answered together.

“I have said repeatedly—” the President began.

The President has said repeatedly—” Ted began.

Then they stopped and laughed a little, while varying degrees of amusement flickered down the table.

“Obviously we agree,” the President said, “so that ends that ploy—that Croy ploy, perhaps I should say. We could, on our part, give you alternatives, despite your kind statement, Governor, that we are so devoid of brains and ability that we have none. There is, for instance, Congressman Hamilton. How about a black on the ticket? Surely that would please a great many. How about Mr. Leffingwell, here? He has quite a constituency among those who are honest enough to appreciate an honest man who has had an honest change of heart. We have the Senate Majority Leader, certainly a man who has proved through many a long season and many a legislative battle that he is deeply and devoutly devoted to the preservation of America.… We have candidates, you see, Governor Croy. It is not as though we are completely devoid of anyone at all. Who, might I ask, do you propose? Yourself?”

At this Roger P. Croy, who had indeed indulged such ambitions at the national convention a couple of weeks ago when it appeared Ted might beat Orrin for the nomination, uttered a deprecating laugh.

“Mr. President,” he said, “your humor does you credit. But it is not to my poor person that Governor Jason should turn for running mate. Surely he has better alternatives than that. We might, for instance, propose the distinguished chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. How about that?”

This time the President shared his reaction with Tom August.

“What?” he demanded with an indignant disbelief, and,

“What?” cried Tom August with a ludicrous dismay.

“Certainly,” Roger Croy said calmly. “Who more fitting? He has just given us a most cogent and effective statement of the issue before the country. He has just shown himself a most reasoned and powerful spokesman for the point of view held by many of us, including, I believe, our candidate for President. So, why not?”

“Well, if you really want to know—” the President said; and then he smiled. “But that would take too long. Anyway, you don’t really want it, do you, Tom? I seem to have that impression.”

“Gracious,” Senator August said. “My gracious! I never thought—”

“Neither did anyone else,” Fred Van Ackerman agreed with a brutal flatness, “so that takes care of that.”

“Well—” Tom August began indignantly, stung out of his usual meekness. “Well, I—” But no one came to his aid, and after a moment his voice trailed away.

Into the silence there intruded the flat, heavy voice of Walter Dobius in his most pompous, Moses-leading-the-Israelites-out-of-difficulties manner.

“Governor Croy is too modest,” he said calmly. “Surely he is far and away the most qualified candidate of the group which, I believe, represents the present mood and intention of the country. And we do not yet know how Mrs. Knox feels about it. Perhaps—” he turned to peer at Beth down the length of the table—“she is not as eager as her supporters.”

Called thus directly to their judgment, she returned his look with a gaze which she hoped was as bland and steady as his own, though she felt a sudden desperate trembling inside. If you were only here, she thought; but the other half of the great Illinois team of “Orrin and Beth” would never be with her again. She drew a deep breath and spoke in a voice that shook only slightly.

“Yes, Walter: perhaps that would be advisable, to find out what I think. Looking at it from a strictly pragmatic political point of view—” and even the harshest critics of her husband around the table listened with close attention, for Beth Knox had the reputation of being as shrewd and practical a politician as any in Washington—“having me on the ticket would of course greatly strengthen Governor Jason’s chances, because it would bring to him all the many Americans—and they are not, perhaps, so much in the minority as Tom assumes—who supported my husband and believe in the policies he stood for. On the other hand—” and she gave a small, rather wistful smile—“does Governor Jason need any strengthening? Isn’t he already so strong that his election is a certainty? And where else can my husband’s supporters go, if not to him? And so why does he need me?

“I will leave aside any question of whether or not I would like to be on the ticket, because I regard that as quite academic under the circumstances. It is not a necessity for victory, and so what I might feel about it myself is really not important at all. If you should wish me to serve—” and she looked straight at Ted to emphasize the choice of pronoun—“I should of course be willing to do so. If you decide otherwise, I should of course support your choice and the ticket.

“I would, though,” she said, as they all listened intently, studying her pleasantly attractive, comfortable face, “like to make just one point about it. You do have the power, Governor, of course. You can choose anyone you like. You don’t have to choose anyone from the ‘war party,’ if we have to use Tom’s rather unpleasant way of putting it. But you perhaps ought to keep in mind that there are a great many people who believe in these policies, and that they are not bloodthirsty, not ravenous for war, not irresponsible. They just have a different way of looking at the same set of facts involving Communist power, particularly Soviet power; and they see a different solution and a different way of meeting the challenge. Basically, maybe, the difference is that they admit the challenge, while many on your side of it—or so it seems to us—will not.

“So: I think you would be taking quite a gamble, and perhaps be making quite a mistake, to dismiss them summarily and ignore them completely in making your choice for Vice President. You can do it, your power of selection is absolute; but it might be really a very ungracious thing, and also one that would weaken your hand in the White House. Because the country really should be unified, Ted; we need it desperately, after these recent months and years; and it can’t be done by deliberately ignoring a great segment of the population.…

“That, at any rate,” she concluded quietly, “is how I see it. Those are my thoughts on it. I offer them to you for what they are worth.”

And she sat back with a little sigh, brushing a stray gray hair with a hand that trembled slightly, as Governor Croy leaned forward again to speak in a calm and well-reasoned voice.

“Which, if you will forgive me, Mrs. Knox, is not, perhaps, as much as they should be worth at such a time and given such a serious situation in the country.

“We all appreciate, I am sure,” he went on smoothly as the President and Bob Munson showed signs of protesting his comment, “the great patriotism with which you speak, and the profound and sincere concern that prompts your remarks. You have made a most generous and becoming offer—to serve or not to serve as it suits Governor Jason’s pleasure; and there is no one of us, I am sure, who has any doubts whatsoever that you have the ability, the intelligence and the character to fill the high office of Vice President of the United States if Governor Jason should so desire. I for one would rest very comfortably with it, I will state to the group—under present circumstances. But, Mrs. Knox and ladies and gentlemen—” and his voice sank to a hushed and thoughtful low—“as we all are so tragically aware in these times—circumstances change.

“Twice in recent days hands unknown have struck down the leaders of America. And even you, Governor, may not be immune.…

“I don’t want to raise hobgoblins,” he said firmly, as an uneasy stirring greeted his remark, “but it is necessary for us to face these things. If by any tragic mishap, yet a third leader should be removed from us—and if he were then in the White House—and if Mrs. Knox were his Vice President—then she would be President.”

“And would that be so bad?” Bob Munson demanded with a sudden sharp impatience.

“Ah, Senator,” Governor Croy said gently, “it would not be bad in the sense you mean it, or in the sense that the country would not have a wise and steady leader. But don’t we come back, right here, to Mrs. Knox’s own point? Aren’t we faced with the possibility that the vast numbers who place their faith in Governor Jason and his policies would thereby be, in a very real sense, summarily disenfranchised?

“Would his policies, even with the best will in the world on the part of his successor, not be inevitably and perhaps harshly reversed in some major degree? Should he not in short, have someone beside him who would continue to carry out his policies of peace, the policies, which I happen to believe, are favored by the great majority of our countrymen?

“It is, I suggest, something to think about. It is something to consider most carefully. It is, to me, the kernel of what we are discussing here. It is not so much continuity of office. It is continuity of ideas.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Bob Munson said. “And isn’t that what’s involved right now? Continuity of Orrin Knox’s ideas—continuity of the ideas that won endorsement of the national convention and the National Committee—continuity of the ideas that won the victory and took control of the party not a week ago?”

“But are not,” Roger P. Croy pointed out softly, “in control of it now. That is what you must remember, Senator: which are not in control of it now.”

Again there was a silence as all along the table they studied one another carefully and then turned at last to the silent figure at their head. But from the handsome face, the distinguished profile, the tired, deep-set eyes, they did not, for several moments, receive response. Then abruptly Ted spoke, passing across his eyes a hand, which, like Beth’s, trembled, slightly from emotion and fatigue.

“You have all been very kind to come here today,” he said, “and I appreciate your giving me your advice. But, as you truly say, Beth, it is my decision, and I think I have to make it—alone.

“I am aware,” he went on, as again there was the fitful, restless, demanding movement along the table, “that time is of the essence. I am aware you need—the country needs—I need—a decision at the earliest possible moment. The things you have said, particularly the President, Mrs. Knox, Senator August, Governor Croy, have needed to be said, they are important and I have had to have them in order to make up my mind. But now I—” and he repeated the pronoun and gave it a slight but unchallengeable emphasis—“I must make up my mind. And no one can do it for me.

“Also,” he added with a sudden little smile that foreshadowed the return of his considerable charm, “I am feeling a little tired and a little rocky still, and I think maybe it’s time for me to take a little snooze and gather myself together. But I promise you,” he concluded, abruptly grave again, “that I shall have a decision for you by tomorrow and no later. And now—” he stood up, slowly and somewhat awkwardly, but managing reasonably well; and they perforce stood with him.

After they had come forward to shake his hand and pay their respects, and just before they began to move slowly and somewhat uncertainly toward the door, he held up a hand and smiled again.

“Keep the wolves outside at bay,” he commanded. “No statements, please, no interviews, and no comments on me, my appearance, the Vice Presidency or anything.”

“What do you think?” Bob Munson murmured to the President as they left the room and started along the hallway to the front door.

The President shrugged.

“Who knows?” Then he frowned. “He’ll call in Croy and Dobius and the NAWAC crew again later, I suppose, and they’ll decide it without us.”

But in this the President was mistaken, for no one was called back to Patsy’s house that night, no one was telephoned, and all who tried to telephone were politely brushed off. And at Press Club bar and Georgetown cocktail party, in humble home and stately mansion, on tube and airwave and printed page, the speculation raged and grew through the night and into the morning and on into the afternoon of the following day, while the nominee for President rested and repaired his health further and, not entirely without calculation and not entirely without enjoyment, let the world dance to the tune he set.

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Framed