rong."

Somewhere at the back of his head he remembered the pleading of Delilah
with Samson, "Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth."

He laughed. "Perhaps you have guessed. I'm what you might call a
round-the-corner person. I have a philosophy all my own; it's a
round-the-corner philosophy. I believe that we find everything that
we've lost or longed for, if we'll only press on. Everything that we've
ever loved or wanted waits for us further up the road, round some hidden
turning. It's always further up the road and just out of sight. The
whole trick of living is to keep your tail up and march forward with the
appearance of success, no matter how badly other people say you've been
defeated. More often than not, we're nearer our hidden corners than any
of us guess; it's the pluck to struggle the last hundred yards that
swings us round the turning and wins our kingdoms for us."

She withdrew her hands and lay back against the cushions. "No amount of
courage----" She broke off and tried afresh. "Being brave wouldn't put
him again into my arms. You're wondering whom I'm talking about--Reggie
Pollock, my only husband. The other two didn't count, any more than
Adair counts. I don't say it unkindly. I do want you to believe that.
They were passers-by--that was all. They hung their hats in the hall
and, somehow, they stopped. They were nice boys, both of them. It seemed
a kind of war-work to let them marry me. You see, they needed me; so
when they said they loved me, I didn't have the heart to turn them out.
I suppose I was too amiable. But they didn't count--not at all."

"The war's over," Tabs reminded her with quiet humor. "How long is this
amiability going to last?"

She smiled dreamily. "Adair again! You don't leave him alone for long.
If you think that I ever let him make love to me, you're mistaken. It's
only that he's unhappy and I can do something for him."

Tabs wasn't at all sure that it was only that. This fatal amiability
might have raised quite different expectations in Adair. Like her two
latest husbands, he might take a notion to hang his hat in her hall. If
he did, would she abate her amiability sufficiently to tell him to hang
it somewhere else?

She was drifting; what she needed was either a tow-rope or a rudder. He
sent his gaze questing through the shadows.

"Those five photographs, all of the same man--they're of Pollock?"

"Yes."

"He was one of the first of all the aces, wasn'