"Not bad news, I hope, Miss Martha?"
"No. Not bad, Henry."
"You tell him I was asking for him, you hear?"
"I surely will, Henry," Martha said.
She waited until Henry's old Ford had disappeared from sight, then picked up the letter and read it again.
Estancia San Pedro Y San Pablo
Midnight, 11/12 April 1943
Dear Martha:
I don't have much time, so this will get right to the point.
The Old Man will get a letter, about the time you get this, in which I told him that in two weeks, more or less, I'm getting married.
I think you will take me at my word when I say that I am doing the right thing, and that when, sometime in the future, you meet her-she's Dorotea Mallin, Henry and Pamela's daughter-you will wonder how in the world a nice girl like that got stuck with a bum like me.
I will probably have a big favor to ask of you, but not right now.
What I'm worried about now is the Old Man. He hates all things Argentine, and you know what kind of a hater he is. I don't want him to start hating me, or Dorotea, before he even gets a chance to meet her. And I don't want him trying to stop me for my own good, or anything like that. And I don't want him to have a heart attack, and that's not a joke.
I will really appreciate anything you can do. I'll leave telling the girls about this up to you. If you don't want to tell them, I'll understand.
Let me know how he reacted. You have the address, Box 1919, National Institutes of Health, Washington, D.C.
Love,
Clete
"It's Mrs. Howell for you, Mr. Howell," Mrs. Portia Stevens announced, putting her head into the door.
Cletus Marcus Howell was standing at the plate-glass window of his twenty-sixth-floor office atop the Howell Petroleum Building, looking out at the traffic on the Mississippi River. Without turning to look at her, he replied, "Please tell her that I'm tied up and will call her later."
Mrs. Stevens, who had been Mr. Howell's personal secretary for thirty-two years and had known Cletus Howell Frade for most of his life, did not feel the slightest reluctance when slicing open the morning's mail to take out and read the letter bearing the return address C.H. Frade, Box 1919, National Institutes of Health, Washington, D. C. She was quite sure she knew why her employer did not wish to talk to his daughter-in-law.
She entered the office, picked up one of the telephones on his desk, walked to the window, and handed it to him.
"I told you to tell her I would call her later."
"So you did," Mrs. Stevens said, and walked out of the office.
"Good morning, Martha," the Old Man said. "How are you? The girls?"
"I just got a letter from Clete," Martha said.
"Did you?"
"And from the tone of your voice, so did you."
"As a matter of fact, I did," the Old Man said.
He walked to his desk, put the telephone base on it, and picked up the letter.
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo