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The three of them went up to Allison's room, and Paul examined every garment in her clothes closet. Allison felt that she should be embarrassed and she knew that with anyone else in the world but Paul she would have been. But he handled her clothes so impersonally that she could not mind. Besides, she was beginning to have the feeling that none of this had anything to do with her. Finally he selected a gray wool with a round, white collar.

“This one,” he said.

“But that's not new,” Allison argued. “I've had it two years and the only reason I brought it along on this trip was to wear it home on the train because it doesn't wrinkle easily.”

“This one,” said Paul again, more definitely. “And no fur stole. The coat you had on downstairs is fine.”

Before Allison knew what was happening, he had picked up her hairbrush and was working on her hair.

“No fancy hair-do, either,” he said. “Get a rubber band and tie it all up in a pony tail.”

“But I haven't worn my hair like that since I was fourteen,” she objected.

“Exactly,” said Paul with a smile. “And no make-up except for a tiny bit of lipstick. Do you have a pink one?”

“No.”

“I'll bring one when I come to pick you up,” said Paul. “I'll be here at twelve-thirty.”

“But I don't want to go dressed like a child,” Allison almost wailed. “I want to look nice.”

Paul put a friendly arm around her shoulder. “Sweetie,” he said, “you'll be a smash. The United States has glamorous lady authors, and old lady authors, and housewifely lady authors and schoolteacherish lady authors. We do not have a scrubbed, clean-looking, young girl author, and you are going to fill this big gap. Trust me, will you?”

Allison looked into the soft, dark eyes that smiled into hers.

“All right,” she said at last. “I'll be ready at twelve-thirty.”

“And go to bed early tonight,” said Paul as he went out the door. “I want you to look as if you'd had twelve hours' sleep tomorrow.”

When he had gone, Allison turned to Lewis Jackman.

“Do you think I'll be all right?” she asked nervously.

“My dear,” said Jackman, “don't give it another thought. Just leave everything to Paul.”

But now that Paul Morris was gone, all of Allison's doubts began to return.

“Is all this necessary?” she asked Jackman. “I mean, this masquerading as something I'm not in order to impress someone?”

“Publicity is a delicate business, Allison. We are paying Paul Morris quite a lot of money to handle it well for us. He is an expert in his field, and the best thing for both of us to do is to put ourselves entirely in his hands. You do want to sell books, don't you?”

“Of course I do,” said Allison.

“Then just do as Paul says,” said Jackman. “I repeat, he's an expert.”

Allison walked to the window of her room and looked down on New York spread out and waiting. As if it wants to be conquered, she thought. She sat down on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette, then piled the pillows against the headboard and, for the first time since she had arrived, relaxed and began to feel herself. Until this moment, she thought, I've been playing a role, the role of the young novelist coming to New York to see her publisher. It was too unreal.

“I never expected it to be like this,” she said to Jackman.

He smiled and pulled a chair over to the bedside and sat down. Like a doctor, she thought, and smiled at him.

“It never is,” he said. “Authors always have a hard time learning the facts of literary life today. It's not that it's so complex, but rather that writers don't want to accept the facts.”

“Try me,” Allison said.

“It's quite simple, Allison. Publishing is a business—like any other. The motive is profit. Books are something we sell. The only difference between a so-called good publisher and a so-called bad one is that the good ones like to think a profit can be made from publishing good books.”

“Which kind are you?” Allison wanted to call him Lewis but could not yet bring herself to do so.

“I have always imagined I am a good one,” he said, smiling. “You know, publishers are very much like authors in a way. After I got into this business it took me quite a few years to accept the reality of it. I suppose that in my youthful fervor I believed that a publishing house was something like a charitable institution for the talented young men and women who submitted their manuscripts. I had to make up my mind to one of the primary facts of business life, which is that the first duty of a business is to stay in business. If my company had gone under, I wouldn't be much good to you now.”

“You have a way,” Allison said, “of making the most unreasonable things sound like sweet reason herself.”

Jackman laughed. Allison looked up at him, startled, not knowing why. Then she realized what it was. “That's the first time I ever heard you laugh, Lewis,” she said.

“I suppose I am a little out of the habit of it.” He touched her hand with his fingertips. “You must come to New York more often, and stay longer. Apparently you are good for me.”

They were both silent then, looking into each other's eyes. Jack-man was the first to turn away. “You touch something in me, Allison. But I have no right to talk like this. I am married. I have a son who is almost as old as you.”

Allison turned her hand over; their palms touched. He bent down and kissed her, a kiss that for all its gentleness shook her with its intimation of suppressed passion. “Even your lips are young,” he said, his voice soft, hardly more than a whisper. “Even your kisses taste young.” He moved toward her again. And Allison thought, I don't care, I don't care, I want this. She opened her arms to him. He was on the bed with her and they were lying side by side.

They spoke not another word to each other, as if both realized that there would be time for speech later. Now they wanted only each other, and with a terrible hunger. He undressed her with hands that trembled like a boy's and, noticing this, she permitted herself to feel a moment of selfish triumph. When their naked bodies touched she gasped; it took her breath away, it was like the shock of diving into a mountain pool.

She was ready for him in an instant and, when he began to stroke her breasts, she cried out and opened herself to him. He took her with a harsh intensity that left her spent and breathless and dazed. She felt Lewis' lips kissing her eyelids. She felt release flowing through her, she cried soundlessly. Lewis held her close and said, “Oh, my dear, my dear,” over and over again, and caressed her gently and with love.

Later he took her to dinner and gazed at her across the table. He made Allison feel she was the rarest being in the world.

“You are so beautiful,” he said, so softly that the words barely reached her ears, as if he had spoken across vast distances.

“Only moonstruck boys have ever told me that, Lewis,” she said.

“Then I am a moonstruck boy, my darling.” His face became sad again, the word “boy” had reminded him of his age and of the great difference between his age and Allison's. Allison was aware of what he must be thinking and reached out and took his hand.

“You are young, Lewis,” she said. “You are young when you are with me because you have love to give. A man is old only when he's exhausted his store of love.”

“I wish that were true, Allison. How I wish that was true! It would make us contemporaries. I've spent as little love in my nearly fifty years of life as you have in half that time. I want to tell you about this, Allison, not only because you have a right to know but because I
want
to tell you.”

He told Allison of his loveless marriage to a neurotic wife. “I married young,” he said, “young and full of hope. Because I loved her I hoped she would change. But she never has. We should have got a divorce twenty years ago, but then my son was born and for a long time that was enough for me.” Lewis was so unused to revealing himself that it embarrassed him; he paused often and shifted the silverware beside his plate. “I gave up all thought of personal happiness. We drifted along. My son's at college now. And my wife … she is very much an inhabitant of her own world. A world she has created out of her own neuroses. Madness, I should say, but it's not a fashionable word any more, is it?
Nice
women, women of good family, don't go mad; they have neuroses. Only peasants are susceptible to madness these days.” He looked down at Allison's hand in his. “You will have gathered by now that I stay with her out of pity. But don't let me give you the impression that it is a noble thing to do,” he said, sarcastic at his own expense. “It's not an act of courage or sacrifice, Allison. Believe me. It's an act of weakness, I'm afraid. The courageous thing would be for me to leave her. But I haven't yet had the strength to do that. Instead, like a weakling, I sit and wait for her to commit suicide or get run over by a car. I have the absurd dream that one day I will be free of her without doing anything myself.”

“It may happen yet, darling,” Allison said, reassuring him.

“Oh, Allison, don't let me draw you into my silly dreams. Nothing happens but what we make happen.”

“I don't care, Lewis. I don't care about any of that. Just love me and everything will be all right.”

He smiled his love to her, but behind the sadness of his eyes he thought, Oh God, how young she is. How young she is.

That night Allison slept in his arms and felt safe, protected from a menacing world.

S
HORTLY BEFORE ONE O'CLOCK
the following afternoon, Allison sat next to Paul Morris at the bar of a Third Avenue restaurant called Kelly's. It had a floor made of small hexagonal tiles, and the old gas chandeliers, converted to electricity, were still in use.

“Brody's been coming here for twenty years,” Paul told Allison. “He made the place fashionable.”

“I lived in New York for over a year,” said Allison, “and never heard of it. It must be very, very fashionable indeed.”

Paul picked up his drink and was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Look, doll, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth or keep them out, for that matter, but don't mention the fact that you once lived in New York to Brody.”

“But what if he asks me?” demanded Allison.

“Then hedge,” said Paul, and put up a hand to stop the words that came to her lips. “Look, you're a clever kid. You've written a novel that has not only been published but is going to be a best seller. You're smart enough with words when you want to be, and I want you to be extra, super smart with Brody. Don't tell him about living in New York. And another thing. During the war Brody got the Pulitzer for news coverage in Italy. You might remember to mention that. It's his pride and joy and not many people remember it.”

“How did you happen to remember?” asked Allison.

“Trade secret,” smiled Paul, “but I'll tell you. Ever since I set this interview up, I've been reading stories by and about Jim Brody. I've studied everything about him so carefully that I bet I could tell you what color pajamas he wears to bed.”

Jim Brody was a big, hearty-looking man who looked as if he enjoyed food and good jokes. When he walked into Kelly's, practically everybody there waved and called out a greeting to him. A waiter removed a “Reserved” sign from a back table and another waiter put down a huge glass of beer before Brody had even had time to take his coat off.

“Here we go, honey,” whispered Paul Morris. “Smile.”

“I can't,” Allison whispered back. “I'm too scared.”

“Yes, you can and no, you're not,” said Paul and led her to Jim Brody's table.

“Hi,” said Brody, barely glancing at Allison as Paul introduced her. “Sit down.”

Allison sat next to Paul Morris. He fools you, she thought, looking at Brody. He's so big and friendly looking, like a Saint Bernard, except for his eyes. His eyes are cold and they see everything.

“Want a beer?” Brody asked.

“I'll have one,” said Paul. “Miss MacKenzie doesn't drink.”

How can he lie like that and still smile? wondered Allison, shocked, as she remembered the dry martini she had just had at the bar.

“How old are you?” asked Brody.

Before Allison could answer, Paul took a slip of paper from an inside pocket of his suit coat.

“I wrote down all the biographical stuff, Jim,” he said. “Thought it might save time.”

Brody took the paper and studied it. “Nineteen, hm-m?” he asked, glancing up at Allison.

For a moment she was speechless. She was twenty-three years old and was just opening her mouth to say so when Brody spoke again.

“You look even younger than that,” he said. “Been writing long?”

“Ever since high school,” she said.

“Ever sell anything?”

“Just short stories. To the magazines.”

“What kind of stories?”

“Oh, you know. Just silly, frothy things for a lot of empty-headed women.”

Brody smiled. “Be careful how you talk about American women,” he said. “A helluva lot of them read my column.”

“Not the same ones who read my stories,” said Allison. “You write about real things and real people.”

“And your stories weren't real?”

“I suppose they were, to the people who read them, but they never were to me. In my stories, all the heroines were blond and beautiful with green eyes and fabulous figures, and all the men were tall, dark and handsome with square, cleft chins and tweed jackets.”

Brody threw back his head and laughed, and under the table Paul Morris gave Allison's hand a gentle squeeze of congratulations.

“Well, you certainly don't have characters like that in your novel,” Brody said. “I read it last night. Where'd a kid your age learn so much about smut?”

Allison was suddenly and thoroughly angry. “I'm very sorry that you think my book is smutty, Mr. Brody,” she said. “I never intended it to be. All I tried to do was to be truthful and to give an accurate picture of small towns as I know them to be. The things that happen in
Samuel's Castle
happen everywhere, and I should think a man who's smart enough to get the Pulitzer would know that.”