ted in a shift of light.

Mrs. Rush turned her gypsy features toward Martha Graham. "You are going
to have a baby?"

It came out as an odd, veiled statement.

Abruptly, the car rolled forward.

Martha Graham said, "It's supposed to be born in about two months. We
hope it's a boy."

Mrs. Rush looked at her husband. "I have changed my mind," she said.

Rush spoke without taking his attention from the road. "It is too ..."
He broke off, spoke in a tumble of strange sounds.

Ted Graham recognized it as the language he'd heard on the telephone.

Mrs. Rush answered in the same tongue, anger showing in the intensity of
her voice. Her husband replied, his voice calmer.

Presently, Mrs. Rush fell moodily silent.

Rush tipped his head toward the rear of the car. "My wife has moments
when she does not want to get rid of the old house. It has been with her
for many years."

Ted Graham said, "Oh." Then: "Are you Spanish?"

Rush hesitated. "No. We are Basque."

He turned the car down a well-lighted avenue that merged into a highway.
They turned onto a side road. There followed more turns--left, right,
right.

Ted Graham lost track.

They hit a jolting bump that made Martha gasp.

"I hope that wasn't too rough on you," said Rush. "We're almost there."

* * * * *

The car swung into a lane, its lights picking out the skeleton outlines
of trees: peculiar trees--tall, gaunt, leafless. They added to Ted
Graham's feeling of uneasiness.

The lane dipped, ended at a low wall of a house--red brick with
clerestory windows beneath overhanging eaves. The effect of the wall and
a wide-beamed door they could see to the left was ultramodern.

Ted Graham helped his wife out of the car, followed the Rushes to the
door.

"I thought you told me it was an old house," he said.

"It was designed by one of the first modernists," said Rush. He fumbled
with an odd curved key. The wide door swung open onto a hallway equally
wide, carpeted by a deep pile rug. They could glimpse floor-to-ceiling
view windows at the end of the hall, city lights beyond.

Martha Graham gasped, entered the hall as though in a trance. Ted Graham
followed, heard the door close behind them.

"It's so--so--so _big_," exclaimed Martha Graham.

"You want to trade _this_ for our trailer?" asked Ted Graham.

"It's too inconvenient for us," said Rush. "My work is over the
mountains on the coast." He shrugged. "We cannot sell it