THE CONFERENCE WAS POSTPONED to the afternoon, then quickly repostponedto the following morning, which gave Caxton an extra twenty-fourhours of badly needed recuperation, a chance to hear in detail about hismissing week, a chance to .grow closer“ with the Man from Mars-for Mikegrokked at once that Jill and Ben were .water brothers,“ consulted Jill aboutit, and solemnly offered water to Ben.
Ben had been adequately briefed by Jill. He accepted it just as solemnly andwithout mental reservations . . . after soul searching in which he decided thathis own destiny was, in truth, interwoven with that of the Man from Marsthroughhis own initiative before he ever met Mike.
Ben had had to chase down, in the crannies of his soul, one uneasy feelingbefore he was able to do this. He at last decided that it was simple jealousy,and, being such, had to be cauterized. He had discovered that he felt irked atthe closeness between Mike and Jill. His own bachelor persona, he learned,had been changed by a week of undead oblivion; he found that he wanted tobe married, and to Jill. He proposed to her again, without a trace of jokingabout it, as soon as he got her alone.
Jill had looked away. .Please, Ben.“.Why not? I’m solvent, I’ve got a fairly good job, I’m in good health-or I willbe, as soon as I get their condemned .truth’ drugs washed out of my system .
. . and since I haven’t, quite, I feel an overpowering compulsion to tell thetruth right now. I love you. I want you to marry me and let me rub your poortired feet. So why not? I don’t have any vices that you don’t share with meand we get along together better than most married couples. Am I too old foryou? I’m not that old! Or are you planning to marry somebody else?“.No, neither one! Dear Ben ... Ben, I love you. But don’t ask me to marry younow. I have . . . responsibilities.“He could not shake her firmness. Admittedly, Mike was more nearly Jill’s agealmostexactly her age, in fact, which made Ben slightly more than ten yearsolder than they were. But he believed Jill when she denied that age was afactor; the age difference wasn’t too great and it helped, all thingsconsidered, for a husband to be older than his wife.
But he finally realized that the Man from Mars couldn’t be a rival- he wassimply Jill’s patient. And at that point Ben accepted that a man who marries anurse must live with the fact that nurses feel maternal toward their chargeslivewith it and like it, he added, for if Gillian had not had the character thatmade her a nurse, he would not love her. It was not the delightful figure-eightin which her pert fanny waggled when she walked, nor even the stillpleasanter and very mammalian view from the other direction-he was not,thank God, the permanently infantile type, interested solely in the size of themammary glands! No, it was Jill herself he loved.
Since what she was would make it necessary for him to take second placefrom time to time to patients who needed her (unless she retired, of course,and he could not be sure it would stop completely even then, Jill being Jill),then he was bloody-be-damned not going to start by being jealous of thepatient she had now! Mike was a nice kid-just as innocent and guileless asJill had described him to be.
And besides, he wasn’t offering Jill any bed of roses; the wife of a workingnewspaperman had things to put up with, too. He might be-he would be-gonefor weeks at times and his hours were always irregular. He wouldn’t like it ifJill bitched about it. But Jill wouldn’t. Not Jill.
Having reached this summing up, Ben accepted the water ceremony fromMike whole-heartedly.
Jubal needed the extra day to plan tactics. .Ben, when you dumped this hotpotato in my lap I told Gililan that I would not lift a finger to get this boy his socalled.rights.’ But I’ve changed my mind. We’re not going to let thegovernment have the swag.“.Certainly not this administration!“.Nor any other administration, as the next one will probably be worse. Ben,you undervalue Joe Douglas.“.He’s a cheap, courthouse politician, with morals to match!“.Yes. And besides that, he’s ignorant to six decimal places. But he is also afairly able and usually conscientious world chief executive-better than wecould expect and probably better than we deserve. I would enjoy a session ofpoker with him . . . for he wouldn’t cheat and he wouldn’t welch and he wouldpay up with a smile. Oh, he’s an S.O.B.-but you can read that as .Swell OldBoy,’ too. He’s middlin’ decent.“.Jubal, I’m damned if I understand you. You told me yesterday that you hadbeen fairly certain that Douglas had had me killed . . . and, believe me, itwasn’t far from it! . . . and that you had juggled eggs to get me out alive if byany chance I still was alive . . . and you did get me out and God knows I’mgrateful to you! But do you expect me to forget that Douglas was behind itall? It’s none of his doing that I’m alive-he would rather see me dead.“.I suppose he would. But, yup, just that-forget it.“.I’m damned if I will!“.You’ll be silly if you don’t. In the first place, you can’t prove anything. In thesecond place, there’s no call for you to be grateful to me and I won’t let youlay this burden on me. I didn’t do it for you.“.Huh?“.I did it for a little girl who was about to go charging out and maybe getherself killed much the same way-if I didn’t do something. I did it because shewas my guest and I temporarily stood in loco parentis to her. I did it becauseshe was all guts and gallantry but too ignorant to be allowed to monkey withsuch a buzz saw; she’d get hurt. But you, my cynical and sin-stained chum,know all about those buzz saws. If your own asinine carelessness causedyou to back into one, who am I to tamper with your karma? You picked it.“.Mmm ... I see your point. Okay, Jubal, you can go to hell-for monkeying withmy karma. If I have one.“.A moot point. The predestinationers and the free-willers were still tied in thefourth quarter, last I heard. Either way, I have no wish to disturb a mansleeping in a gutter; I assume until proved otherwise that he belongs there.
Most do-gooding reminds me of treating hemophilia-the only real cure forhemophilia is to let hemophiliacs bleed to death . before they breed morehemophiliacs.“.You could sterilize them.“.You would have me play God? But we’re veering off the subject. Douglasdidn’t try to have you assassinated.“.Says who?“.Says the infallible Jubal Harshaw, speaking ex cathedra from his bellybutton. See here, son, if a deputy sheriff beats a prisoner to death, it’ssweepstakes odds that the county commissioners didn’t order it, didn’t knowit, and wouldn’t have permitted it had they known. At worst they shut theireyes to it-afterwards-rather than upset their own applecarts. Butassassination has never been an accepted policy in this country.“.I’d like to show you the backgrounds of quite a number of deaths I’velooked into.“Jubal waved it aside. .I said it wasn’t a policy. We’ve always had politicalassassination-from prominent ones like Huey Long to men beaten to deathon their own front steps with hardly a page-eight story in passing. But it’snever been a policy here and the reason you are sitting in the sunshine rightnow is that it is not Joe Douglas’ policy. Consider. They snatched you clean,no fuss, no inquiries. They squeezed you dry-then they had no more use foryou . . . and they could have disposed of you as quietly as flushing a deadmouse down a toilet. But they didn’t. Why not? Because they knew their bossdidn’t really like for them to play that rough and if he became convinced thatthey had (whether in court or out), it would cost their jobs if not their necks.“Jubal paused for a swig. .But consider. Those S.S. thugs are just a tool; theyaren’t yet a Praetorian Guard that picks the new Caesar. Such being, whomdo you really want for Caesar? Courthouse Joe whose basic indoctrinationgoes back to the days when this country was a nation and not just a satrapyin a polyglot empire of many traditions . . . Douglas, who really can’t stomachassassination? Or do you want to toss him out of office (we can, you know,tomorrow-just by double-crossing him on the deal I’ve led him to ex............