er
causes.

My attention was wandering from the Kutrov-Alva variations, for Bill had
only been speaking for ten minutes, and could not be expected to arrive
at any point whatsoever for at least another fifteen. From the east of
us came apocalyptic figures of nuclear physics; from the west, I heard
the strains of Mondrian interwoven with Picasso; south of us, a post
mortem on the latest "betrayal" of this or that aspiration of "the
people", and to the north, we heard the mysteries of atonality. It was
while I was looking around, and letting these things roll over me, that
I saw the stranger enter. Jocelyn immediately bounced up from a couch,
leaving the crucial problem of atmosphere-poisoning via fission and/or
fusion bombs suspended, and made effusive noises.

This, then, was the "troubadour"--Mr. Fayliss. The Main Attraction was
decidedly prepossessing. Tall, peculiarly graceful both in appearance
and manner, dressed with an immaculateness that seemed excessive in this
post-Bohemian circle. There was a decided musical quality to his speech,
as he made polite comments upon being introduced to each of us, and an
exactness in sentence-structure, word-choices and enunciation that
bespoke the foreigner. Jocelyn took him around with the air of
conducting a quick tour through a museum, then settled him momentarily
with the music group, now in darkest Schoenberg, only partially
illuminated by "Wozzek". I watched Fayliss long enough to solidify an
impression that he was at ease here--but not merely in this particular
discussion. It was a case of his being simply at ease, period.

Kutrov was watching him, too, and I saw now that there would be a
most-likely permanent digression. Too bad--I'd had a feeling that when
he came to his point, it would have been a strong one. "Hungarian, do
you suppose?" he asked.

Alva examined the evidence. Fayliss had high cheekbones, longish eyes,
with large pupils. He was lean, without giving an impression of
thinness. He had not taken off his gloves, and I wondered if he would
come forth with a monocle; if he had, it would not have seemed an
affectation.

"I wouldn't say Slavic," Alva said. He started off on ethnology, and we
toured the Near East again. I jumped into the break when Kutrov was
swallowing beer and Alva lighting a cigaret to observe that Fayliss
reminded me of some Egyptian portraits--although I couldn't set the
period. "If those eyes of his don't shine in the dark," I added,