When Major Joe Mauser entered the swank Agora Bar, the little
afternoon dance band broke into a few bars of that tune which was
beginning to pall on him.
_"... I knew her heart was breaking,
And to my heart in anguish pressed,
The girl I left behind me."_
Nadine looked up from the little table she occupied and caught the wry
expression on his face and laughed.
"What price glory?" she said.
He took the chair across from her and chuckled ruefully. "All right,"
he said, "I surrender. However, if you think a theme song is bad,
you'll be relieved at some of the other ideas my, ah, publicity agent
had which I turned down."
She said, "Oh, did he want you to dash into some burning building and
save some old lady's canary, or something?"
"Not exactly. However, he had a nightclub singer with a list of nine
or ten victories behind her--"
"Victories?"
"Husbands. And I was to be seen escorting the singer around the
nightclub circuit."
"A fate worse than death? But, truly, why did you turn him down?"
"I wanted to spend the time with you."
She made a moue. "So as to carry on our never-ending argument over the
value of status?"
"No."
Her eyes dropped and there was a slight frown on her forehead. Joe
interpreted it to mean that she took exception to one of Mid-Middle
caste speaking to her in this wise. He said, flatly, "At least the
tune is somewhat applicable tonight."
She looked up quickly, having immediately caught the meaning of his
words. "Oh, Joe, you haven't taken another commission?"
"Why not? I'm a mercenary by trade, Nadine." He was vaguely irritated
by her tone.
"But you admittedly made a small fortune on the last fracas. You were
one of the very few investors in the whole country who expected Vacuum
Tube Transport to boom, rather than go bankrupt. You simply don't
_need_ to risk your life further, Joe!"
He didn't bother to tell her that already the greater part of his
small fortune had been siphoned off in Freddy Soligen's campaign to
make him a celebrity. He said, instead, "The stock shares I'll make
aren't particularly important, Nadine. But Stonewall Cogswell has
pledged that if I'll fly for him in the Carbonaceous Fuel-United
Miners fracas, he'll press my ambitions for promotion."