out for Miss Schmitt's number
before I pile us up and we miss out on our second honeymoon?"

* * * * *

Miss Schmitt proved to look as well as sound much younger than Kessler
knew her to be, a bright and plump little woman with very very blond
hair tightly curled. Margaret had come along into her little apartment
without much urging. Miss Schmitt had apparently been expecting both
of them because she had three flower-painted glasses out for lemonade.

"I suppose I'm old-fashioned," she was saying cheerfully before they
were even settled, "but I don't hold by cocktails. Nothing more
cooling than good old lemonade. Real lemons, too, not this bottled
stuff. You know what they say--you can take them out of the country
but you can't take the country out of them!" She laughed breathlessly.
"I've been living in the big city for twenty-five years now but I'm
still an Ioway girl. Get back almost every year, too, still perfectly
at home there. I'll be sitting out on the veranda next month drinking
lemonade and shooing flies like I'd never been away!" She laughed her
breathless laugh again.

Margaret was obviously enjoying herself as much as Valeria Schmitt.
Even Kessler was relaxed now, leaning back in the choice chair by the
window with his collar pulled open. His search _had_ been a neurotic
one, he decided, as he listened to Miss Schmitt's pleasant chatter. He
realized he would learn nothing here, but now he was not angry even
with himself.

Miss Schmitt had taken the first opportunity to explain that she was a
lot younger than her old boy friend, who had died in the crash at the
age of seventy-three. "Of course my family were against Bob Spencer
for that reason, too. He was almost fifteen years older than me."
Kessler suppressed a smile. He knew the difference in age was more
like ten years, but Miss Schmitt was secure in her blond, plump good
cheer. "It's a little too much," she went on, "fifteen years, but then
we never really did hit it off. Never really broke off, either." She
held up her hand, displaying a ring. "See. Just got it out a few
months ago. Haven't worn it for I don't know how many years. When I
left Iowa City--"

"I thought it was Keokuk?" Margaret interrupted. She was perfectly at
home with Valeria as she sipped her lemonade.

"No, honey." It was girl-talk now and Kessler was happy to let it go
on, feeling suddenly very tired. "We worked together as stenographers
in Io