Decision at Delphi Read Free

Italian fortissimo, raised voices, more gongs echoing down the corridor, a rush, a bustle, a surge of people outside the cabin door, the frenzied excitement of expected departure. The girl laughed and looked at Strang helplessly. The crushing weight of noise lifted. She was about to speak.
    “Second warning bell has gone,” Josephine interrupted. “Kenneth, I didn’t get a minute to talk to you!” She began making up for lost time. Behind her, husband Carl was saying decided good-byes to everyone. He was a hale, explosive type, with prematurely white hair, who had done very well on Madison Avenue with his capacity to make up other people’s minds for them. Now he had decided it was time to get off this ship, and everyone here was going to get off this ship, too; he’d see to that. He thumped Strang’s shoulder. “What a racket you’re in!” he told everyone. “Five months’ vacation, while all the rest of us are chained to the desk! Tell me”—he turned to Lee Preston—“is there really any demand for the kind of stuff Ken does?” He gave a genial nod of dismissal and passed on to say good-bye to Mason Farmer, signalling Josephine to follow.
    Josephine finished her advice about brucellosis, gave a cheek to kiss, a jangle of bracelets as a farewell salute, and then said, “Oh, I nearly forgot—the rest of your luggage came. Carl had it put under your bed, out of the way. He took care of the two stewards.”
    Strang, now shaking Mason Farmer’s hand, looked startled. “Two?”
    “They came separately.” And as he stared at her, she added a little sharply, “Yes—your two cases. The large one and the little one. They’re under your bed. You’ll remember that?”
    Strang looked at his sister’s retreating back, then at Farmer in amazement. But the publisher had his own immediate problem. In his quiet, diffident way, he was saying, “You won’t forget that we’d like very much to see your work when it’s completed? I think you’ll have a book there.”
    “I shan’t forget,” Strang promised, a little dazed by the hint of Farmer’s real interest. Normally, such a moment would haverocketed him through the ceiling, but now he was still half thinking about some fellow passenger’s small suitcase stowed neatly under his bed. Carl’s brisk efficiency was often self-defeating: why hadn’t he looked at the labels to make sure?
    “After our three instalments are published,” Preston was reminding Farmer with professional friendliness.
    “Of course, of course. By the way, Strang, why not take in Asia Minor? There’s a good deal of Greek remains at Pergamum and—”
    “Not this trip,” Preston said firmly. “Ken has enough on his plate as it is. We’re leaving the Greek eastern empire for another year. You’ll just have to plan a two-volume job, Mason.” He enjoyed the worry on his friend’s brow. “Cheer up. If you charge fifteen dollars a volume, you’ll clear all expenses. Time you had a prestige book.”
    “My, my, and is this how it’s done?” Jennifer asked, lining up in turn for her good-bye hug. “You do know how to parlay your talents, brother.” She looked a little triumphantly at her husband. Philip. Of all the family, Jennifer had been the only one not to take a dim view of Kenneth Strang’s change in career. Philip, even with the evidence all around him that his brother-in-law was not exactly destitute, still had regret in his eyes for Maclehose, Mitchem and Moore, the firm of architects where Kenneth’s career would have been so nicely assured. Still, they’d always take Kenneth on again, if he decided to return to architecture once he got these mad ideas out of his system. Too bad Kenneth had not married the Bradley girl; there was nothing like a wife and a first mortgage for keeping a man’s feet firm on his own piece of ground. Then Philip put these thoughts aside and shook hands warmly. He liked his youngbrother-in-law despite the fact he never quite knew what