l poor
Ernest seemed to want these days was to play the saxophone.

And then there was his own political future to consider. This would
certainly not help it. But perhaps the affair would be forgotten in
the next three years. After all, it might have been far worse. It
might have happened in a campaign year. This way he still had a
fighting chance. Three sessions with a good record might overbalance
the loss in public confidence this would incur. And then he thought of
the Mars colony mess and winced.

Telling his wife about the matter was not nearly so difficult as the
senator had feared. She had been ready for news of a crime of passion,
or at least of armed robbery. What her husband had to relate stunned
her at first. But once she had ridden out the shock, she recovered
quickly.

"You don't have to go tonight, Molly," Duran told her.

"You think it might look better if I didn't?" she asked gently.

"That wasn't what I was getting at," he said. He thought it over for a
moment, then added, "No, I don't. In fact, I think it would look
better if we both went to the Governor's. Roger is not a juvenile
delinquent. That, I believe, is understood. If we must accept some of
the responsibility for what he did today, then let's do so gracefully.
Were you to stay home tonight, it might appear to some that you had
reason to be ashamed of the business, which you don't."

"It might also look as if I were afraid that Ernest might do
something similar, as if I felt I had to watch him," she said. "Oh,
people can be so ridiculous! Why wasn't Millie Gorton's boy in on it?"

Duran smiled at the idea of the Governor's tubby, obtuse son involved
in the construction of anything more demanding than a paper glider.

* * * * *

The Governor's mansion, a century old edifice typifying the moribund
tendency to confuse dignity with discomfort, was teeming with
professional and political personages when the Durans arrived. The
dinner went off routinely, with no overt references made to the
missile matter. However, the senator noticed that no one inquired into
the health and happiness of his two sons, so that he presumed word had
got around.

It was not until after dinner, when he had seated himself alone in a
corner of the luxurious old living room, a B and B in one hand and a
cigar in the other, that his host approached him.

"Evenin', Vance. Sure glad you could make it," exclaimed the
familiarly jovial