d that the
evening was as bad as he had anticipated. He stood on the outskirts of
a small group, holding a drink and watching resentfully as a
startlingly beautiful woman laughed and talked with the others of the
group and not with him. She had been introduced to him as Sheila
Wesley. The jokes she had with the others were quick and subtle
flashes of wit and insight, and seemed to be based on a mutual
understanding that he could not share, even though some of the others
had just been introduced and had been strangers to each other a few
minutes back; it was something he grasped vaguely as a common
background and approach to life that they shared, perhaps through
education.

There were quick references to political situations they all seemed
familiar with, or a name that could have been some character in a book
they might all have read, or could have been somebody in history, each
reference followed by a subdued laugh and an added witty statement
from some other quarter. No one of them gave a word to him or noticed
that he was there.

Why should they? He was dressed well and expensively, but so were they
all. He was a person of prominence and power, but so were they all,
and bored by it. He could not talk like the others. Then what could he
do to make Sheila Wesley smile at him the way she smiled down at the
ridiculous little fat man beside her as he excitably stuttered out his
opinions.

* * * * *

Sheila Wesley was not like Mona, to be captured by money and clothes
and influence. Would she be impressed even by the power he would have
later? He tried to picture her as tremulous and awed, hanging on his
words and flattering him, but he couldn't believe it. She probably
wouldn't notice him any more than now. There was nothing he could do
to impress her. He had thought Mona had poise, but now he saw that her
manner was just an inadequate carbon copy of a completely spontaneous
original. The woman, Sheila, managed to be poised, aloof, and yet
friendly to everyone, simultaneously warm and unattainable.

He desired to be bitingly rude. That, at least, would make her admit
that he existed. She was smiling at that ridiculous little fat man
again.

He drained his glass and, completely unnoticed, left the party. Nobody
would miss him, he was sure.

Outside in the corridor, Roy Pierce, his assistant, was engaged in
conversation with two young men and two girls.

"There he is now," he hear