This was the sort of blind, a delicately decorated screen, replete with incident, people, flora and fauna, which she knew well by now how to raise around herself. From Barry she went on to see her son, Latham, at his school in Massachusetts, and straight from there, as she had known for a month now she would do, she flew to Washington where she met her husband, Jerry Sasser. He used to be so handsome but in the two years since they had parted, some inner slackening off had come out clearly on his features. She wondered if this effect might not come from too much drinking and she wondered how well he was doing. He had a way of charging through doors and stopping suddenly to take note of the terrain before him; rather like a lion entering an unfamiliar stretch of jungle, he went to work at once looking for a victim or an enemy, striking an attitude which always had its effect on whatever room he entered. In this case it was the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel, and Catherine, watching from the depths of a green armchair, while the familiar scene unfolded, saw at least a dozen heads lift as though from grazing and slowly turn.
