"The brig Roanoke out of Virginia," he said, nodding at the model. "Her keel was laid in 1728, and she went on the rocks off Nova Scotia in 1743. My father built the model from scratch about forty years ago."
"You went to all this trouble just to get me alone?" she said dazedly.
"That's obvious, isn't it?"
She stared at him. He met her eyes steadily and she blushed.
"You see," he went on, "I wanted to have a little informal chat, just the two of us, without interference or interruption from the hassles of my office."
The room reeled about her. "You . . . you just want to talk?"
He looked at her curiously for a moment and then he began to chuckle. "You flatter me, Mrs. Seagram. It was never my intent to seduce you. I fear my reputation as a ladies' man is somewhat exaggerated."
"But at the party-"
"I think I understand." He took her by the hand and led her to a chair. "When I whispered, 'I must meet you alone,' you took it as a proposition from a lecherous old man. Forgive me, that was not my intent."
Dana sighed. "I wondered what a man who could have any one of a hundred million women just by snapping his fingers could possibly see in a drab, married, thirty-one year old marine archaeologist."
"You don't do yourself justice," he said, suddenly serious. "You are really quite lovely."
Again she found herself blushing. "No man has made a pass at me in years."
"Perhaps it is because most honorable men do not make passes at married women."
"I'd like to think so."
He pulled up a chair and sat opposite her. She sat primly, her knees pressed together, hands in lap. The question, when it came, caught her totally unprepared.
"Tell me, Mrs. Seagram, are you still in love with him?"
She stared at him, incomprehension written in her eyes. "Who?"
"Your husband, of course."
"Gene?"
"Yes, Gene," he said, smiling. "Unless you have another spouse hidden away somewhere."
"Why must you ask that?" she said.
"Gene is cracking at the seams."
Dana looked puzzled. "He works hard, but I can't believe he is on the verge of a mental breakdown."
"Not in the strict clinical sense, no." The President's expression was grim. "He is, however, under enormous pressure. If he is faced with serious marital problems on top of his workload, he might fall over the brink. I cannot allow that to happen, not yet, not until he completes a highly secret project that is vital to the nation."
"It's that very damned secret project that's come between us," she burst out angrily.
"That and a few other problems-such as your refusal
to bear children."
She looked at him thunderstruck. "How could you possibly know all this?"
"The usual methods. It makes no difference how. What matters is that you stick with Gene for the next sixteen months and give him all the tender loving care you can find in your soul to give."
Nervously, she folded and unfolded her hands. "It's that important?" she asked in a faint voice.