It began, innocently, with a dinner invitation from the Foster Knowles‘. Lake was not particularly keen about the Knowles‘—their sophomoric expressions and youth-culture mannerisms disgusted him no end. And the fact that other people in Tangier seemed to like them only added to his despair. They'd made friends on account of their jogging group and now were on the make, penetrating the society of the Mountain, even rating a tryout at Barclay's house for lunch. Lake couldn't understand it. They were a pair of straw-haired bumpkins as far as he could see. Jackie Knowles and her gymnastics classes, Foster and his antipathy for meat—perhaps, he thought, it was their wholesomeness that was so attractive in this town where everyone else was either mad or queer. He didn't know, but it annoyed him all the same. The Knowles' were more popular than Janet and himself, though he was Consul General and Tangier was Foster's premier post. Lake and his wife pulled up to the Knowles' building just as Willard and Katie Manchester were locking up their car.
