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By Root 10539 0

became very nervous as we waited in his office for them. Dinner hour with his wife was approaching, that was why. Finally he sent word by his chauffeur to Stella's apartment that we'd join them at half-past nine, and then took me home with him in a cab, across the park. So I met Mrs. Mintouchian. I couldn't figure out her complaint. She was dressed in a quilted blue robe and her hair was gray. She was dignified, if not haughty; I felt her conduct like a kind of touching athletic prowess. She gave me a very upstage reception. "Harold, the martinis have to be mixed in the kitchen," she said to Mintouchian. So he went out, and as soon as he left she said, almost with violence, "Who are you, young man?" "Me? I'm a client of Mr. Mintouchian. You see, I'm just about to get married." "I don't expect you to tell me anything," she said. "I know that Harold has his secrets. I mean, he thinks he has. I really know all about him, because I think about him all the time. It isn't so hard if you spend all your time thinking about somebody. I don't have to leave this room." I was astonished. I felt my eyes get wide. I said, "I haven't known Mr. Mintouchian long, ma'am, but in my opinion he's a great man." "Oh, you realize that? He is great, even if he's all too human." It awed me that when this lion, Mintouchian, sobbed in the brakes of, he thought, most solitude, this invalid was standing listening behind him. But then he came carrying the glasses and the conversation was finished.

CHAPTER XXV

As drugged with love as I was, why, nothing could deter me from marriage. I'm not sure whether Mintouchian was trying to do that, but if he was he didn't stand a chance, because I wasn't hospitable to suspicions. However, he acted the part of a good friend. He arranged with the catering service for the wedding lunch and bought roses and gardenias for everybody. By City Hall the air was blue, and there seemed to be trembles of music. When we came down in the elevator I remembered how more than a year before I was standing on top of County Hospital, Chicago, and reflecting how of all our famiiy, including old Grandma, Simon was the only one who had managed to stay out of an institution. But now I didn't have any more reason to envy him. Envy? Why, I thought I had it all over him, seeing I was married to a woman I loved and therefore I was advancing on the only true course of life. I told myself my brother was the kind of man who could only leave the world as he found it and hand on the fate he inherited to any children he might now have--I didn't for sure know whether he had any. Yes, this was how such people were subject to all the laws in the book, like the mountain peaks leaning toward their respective magnetic poles, or like crabs in the weeds or crystals in the caves. Whereas I, with the help of love, had gotten in on a much better thing and was giving this account of myself that reality comes from and was not just at the mercy. And here was the bride with me, her face was burning with happy excitement; she wanted what I wanted. In her time she had made mistakes, but all mistakes were now wiped out. We came out on the steps. The doves were walking around, and Mintouchian had arranged for a photographer to be there and make a picture of the wedding party. He was very thoughtful and acted kind to everyone. I had graduated from Sheepshead the day before and had my new 4S8 rating in my pocket. My smile was changed, because they had given me some lower teeth gratis to replace the ones I lost in Mexico. I have to confess that in addition to passionate love and the pride of the day I had a bubble in me like the air bubble of the carpenter's level. But I was shaved and combed like a movie actor and dressed in the new high-pressure uniform, which lacked only service ribbons and stars. I would have liked some, and to have married a beauty as a hero of the service of his country. I promised myself that I would have been modest. However, you wouldn't have been able to tell how nervous I was, I think. It wasn't just because I had to ship out soon after the