The Golden Calves Read Free Page A

scuttling through dark alleys to blessed havens, this dwelling was certainly the greatest of the latter, far safer than the museum itself, for there were no acting directors, no Carol Sweeterses there, only the friendly ancient Irish maids, moving silently through dim, cool chambers to administer to the perfect comfort of a wonderful old lady surrounded by objects of incomparable beauty.
    Emerging from the taxi that she had extravagantly taken, Anita paused to gaze gratefully up at the welcoming façade whose heavily rusticated ground floor seemed almost too hefty for the support of the second and third stories of red limestone and the green mansard roof popping with bull’s-eye windows. Then, taking her key, she let herself into the front hall to greet the Assyrian warriors with a silently breathed assurance that she would do her best to protect them from a threatened power of even greater evil than their cruel profiles seemed to evoke.
    She found Miss Speddon alone in the parlor, sitting in her usual upright position in the middle of a high-backed divan before a silver tea service that might have meant, to one unfamiliar with her ways, that she was expecting a dozen guests.
    "Why how nice, dear, that you’re home early, just in time for a cup of tea. And to think I was just feeling the least bit sorry for myself at being all alone.”
    Miss Speddon was a tall, thin, bony woman who dressed in lively colors, often red, but she wore no make-up, scorning to compromise with time’s ravages, professing on the contrary to welcome them, in accordance with her stoutly maintained theory that each minute of life was as good, or should be, as any other. Her strong, oval, slightly equine face was framed by long hair of snowy white, parted in the middle of her scalp, and her unadorned neck and ears gave emphasis to the big-stoned rings that turned around on her long thin fingers.
    "I had a visitor this morning,” she observed after she had filled Anita’s cup. “None other than your young acting director.”
    "Oh? He didn’t tell me.”
    â€œDoes he tell you everything?” Was Miss Speddon being arch?
    â€œNot at all. But associating me, as he does, so entirely with you, I should have thought he might mention it when he was in my office this afternoon.”
    â€œDoes he come often to your office?”
    Anita wondered in dismay whether the whole world was going mad. “Dear Miss Speddon, what in the world are you driving at?”
    â€œSimply that he strikes me as having a more than casual interest in you.”
    â€œHe certainly has a more than casual interest in
you.
And in your collection. As I suppose he should have. And certainly a more than casual interest in the fund with which he hopes to see it endowed.” “Dear me, how mercenary the world must seem to you! But that brings me exactly to the point I’ve been for some time wanting to make. That I may have been remiss in introducing you to that world. How many years have you been living with me, dear?”
    â€œThree years and three months.”
    â€œHow precisely you know it!”
    â€œIt shows that, contrary to the belief of many theologians, there
can
be time in heaven."
    Miss Speddon’s little smile acknowledged the too florid compliment. “Dear child, how gracefully you put it. But in all that time how often have you entertained your friends here?”
    â€œYou had all my family here for my thirtieth birthday. A good dozen in all, counting all the halfs and steps.”
    â€œBut
friends,
Anita. When have we had your friends?”
    Anita sighed at having to go into this again. For Miss Speddon was constantly offering her the chance for hospitality. It was simply that Miss Speddon forgot. "You’ve offered to ask my friends here again and again. Nobody could have been more profusely generous. It is I who have been the reluctant one.”
    "Maybe I shouldn't have paid attention to your