A Gong sounded and a mechanical voice announced, "Mr. Peter Hubbard to
see Mr. Dyall and Mr. Shortmire."
"Do you mean to say he has the _gall_ to come see us, after the
accusations he made against you, Emrys?" Dyall demanded incredulously.
"I still can't understand why you sent him an invitation to the
wedding, but that he should make a casual social call...!"
"We've come to terms." Emrys smiled. "After all, at his age, he can't
be held accountable for everything he says."
"I'm at least fifty years older than he is!" the old engineer almost
spat. "And you--do you mean that I am not responsible for what I say?"
Knowing that he was the other man's senior by some twenty years
himself, Emrys was malevolently pleased. "Some people retain their
faculties longer than others," he observed. "And Hubbard was my
father's friend, as well as his lawyer, so he's the closest thing to
a relative that I have on Earth. Except you, of course; you were my
father's friend, too."
Dyall's lips tightened. "How does Hubbard know you're in this house
right now? Do you think he's having you followed?"
It was possible, but Emrys didn't care. For almost a year now, his life
had been blameless, and, strangely, it suited him to live that way.
"I'm here in this house most of the time. It wouldn't be hard for him
to figure out where he could find me."
The gong sounded again. Dyall looked undecided.
"If _I_ can forgive him, sir," Emrys said gently, "surely _you_ can."
"Show him in," Dyall rasped to the machine.
Megan rose to go, but Emrys kept hold of her small, cold hand. "I'd
like you to meet Peter Hubbard, dear. He's really a nice old fellow
when you get to know him. Just a bit too much of a do-gooder, that's
all."
Dyall snorted.
"I shall be glad to know any friend of yours, Emrys," Megan said,
sitting down again obediently.
After a moment, Peter Hubbard came into the room. "Peter, this is my
fiancée, Megan Dyall." Smilingly, Emrys waited for the usual inane
felicitations. He couldn't expect a man of Hubbard's age to be bowled
over by this loveliness, but still surely no man, no matter how
ancient, could be completely insensible to the girl's charm.
Hubbard stood still and stared at her. "Amazing...." he murmured.
"Amazing...." Then he turned to Dyall. "You are to be congratulated,
sir."
Emrys was annoyed. He knew Hubbard was too well-bred to make a remark
like that unintentionally. However, he pretended to be amused and said,
"You're supposed to congratulate _me_, Peter."
But Hubbard continued his inexplicable rudeness by paying no attention
to Emrys and, instead, staring at Nicholas Dyall. And finally Dyall
said, with a strangled laugh, "I think perhaps in this instance Mr.
Hubbard is right."
He threw himself into an easy chair with an attempt at nonchalance,
but it was embarrassingly apparent that his stick was not enough to
support him any more. His old body was trembling. And Emrys found that
he himself was trembling, too.
* * * * *
There was a painful silence. Everyone seemed to be waiting. Even Megan
glanced from one to the other with her usual expression of bright-eyed
interest.
"Unfortunately, Mr. Hubbard," Dyall said at last, "you've reached your
conclusions too late to do anything except perhaps hasten an end that
is, you'll concede, by now inevitable."
"Yes," Hubbard agreed, "you've won _your_ game." He came a little
further into the room, so that he was standing over the other old man.
"I do believe that, of the two, you are the worse. He did what he did
out of spite. You created that spite and kept it alive."
Dyall's dark face flushed and his hands tightened on his cane. "But I
had a right to do what I did. And I hurt only one person. Two, if you
include me. Give me credit, at least, for the smallness of my scope."
Hubbard glanced at Megan. And Dyall broke into the shrill cackle of an
old man. "But you know, you _know_, and still you think of her! How
sentimental can you get? Don't you realize--"
"How much does she?" Hubbard said. "How much do you?"
Emrys had become nearly frantic with frustration and bewilderment. He
was the one who had secrets; nobody else. Nothing was to be kept hidden
from _him_! "What are you two blabbering about?" he almost screamed.
"It doesn't make sense--any of it!"
Hubbard turned toward him, his head and neck moving with the deliberate
precision of a piece of clockwork. "It makes very good sense, Jan. I
realized that I could find out nothing more from the stars, so I turned
my researches back to Earth. I've been investigating Mr. Dyall."
"What did you find?" Emrys asked tensely. Why did Peter call him by his
former name in front of his former enemy? Had the old fool forgotten
his promise, or had he broken it on purpose? "_What did you find out?_"
he repeated.
Hubbard's voice was filled with pity. "Just this: Nicholas Dyall never
did marry Alissa Embel."
Emrys' fear exploded into a scarlet rage. "Then Megan is--" He advanced
on Dyall, his fists clenched. "If you took Alissa and then didn't--"
Hubbard caught his arm in a frail grip. "Don't be so hasty, Emrys.
Dyall did no wrong to Alissa Embel, whatever wrong he may have done to
you."
"Thank you," Dyall murmured, "for granting me that I gave her all I
had, but it wasn't what she wanted. She wanted--" his old eyes were
filled with hate as he looked at Emrys--"you."
"Alissa Embel killed herself on the day before the wedding," Hubbard
told Emrys. "She, as we attorneys say, died without issue."
* * * * *
Emrys was glad that, since he could not have had Alissa, Dyall had not,
either. At the same time, he felt an overwhelmingly poignant sense of
sorrow, that he should have had three full lifetimes, and the woman he
had loved--insofar as Jan Shortmire had been capable of love--not even
one.