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Presteign and his guests watched with amazement. A giant machine, bellowing and pounding, approached, crawling over the ties. Behind it were deposited parallel rails of welded steel. Crews with sledges and pneumatic punches spiked the rails to the timber ties. The track was laid to Presteign's door in a sweeping arc and then curved away. The bellowing engine and crews disappeared into the darkness.
«Good God!» Presteign was distinctly heard to say. Guests poured out of the house to watch.
A shrill whistle sounded in the distance. Down the track came a man on a white horse, carrying a large red flag. Behind him panted a steam locomotive drawing a single observation car. The train stopped before Presteign's door. A conductor swung down from the car followed by a Pullman porter. The porter arranged steps. A lady and gentleman in evening clothes descended.
«Shan't be long,» the gentleman told the conductor. «Come back for me in an hour.»
«Good God!» Presteign exclaimed again.
The train puffed off. The couple mounted the steps.
«Good evening, Presteign,» the gentleman said. «Terribly sorry about that horse messing up your grounds, but the old New York franchise still insists on the red flag in front of trains.»
«Fourmyle!» the guests shouted.
«Fourmyle of Ceres!» the sightseers cheered. Presteign's party was now an assured success.
Inside the vast velvet and plush reception hall, Presteign examined Fourmyle curiously. Foyle endured the keen iron-gray gaze with equanimity, meanwhile nodding and smiling to the enthusiastic admirers he had acquired from Canberra to New York, with whom Robin Wednesbury was chatting.
«Control,» he thought. «Blood, bowels and brain. He grilled me in his office for one hour after that crazy attempt I made on 'Vorga.' Will he recognize me? Your face is familiar, Presteign,» Fourmyle said. «Have we met before?»
«I have not had the honor of meeting a Fourmyle until tonight,» Presteign answered ambiguously. Foyle had trained himself to read men, but Presteign's hard, handsome face was inscrutable. Standing face to face, the one detached and compelled, the other reserved and indomitable, they looked like a pair of brazen statues at white heat on the verge of ru
«I'm told that you boast of being an upstart, Fourmyle.»
«Yes. I've patterned myself after the first Presteign.»
«Indeed?»
«You will remember that he boasted of starting the family fortune in the plasma blackmarket during the third World War.»
«It was the second war, Fourmyle. But the hypocrites of our clan never acknowledge him. The name was Payne then.»
«I hadn't known.»
«And what was your unhappy name before you changed it to Fourmyle?»
«It was Presteign.»
«Indeed?» The basilisk smile acknowledged the hit. «You claim a relationship with our clan?»
«I will claim it in time.»
«Of what degree?»
«Let's say . . . a blood relationship.»
«How interesting. I detect a certain fascination for blood in you, Fourmyle.»
«No doubt a family weakness, Presteign.»
«You're pleased to be cynical,» Presteign said, not without cynicism, «but you speak the truth. We have always had a fatal weakness for blood and money. It is our vice. I admit it.»
«And I share it.»
«A passion for blood and money?»
«Indeed I do. Most passionately.»
«Without mercy, without forgiveness, without hypocrisy?»
«Without mercy, without forgiveness, without hypocrisy.»
«Fourmyle, you are a young man after my own heart. If you do not claim a relationship with our clan I shall be forced to adopt you.»
«You're too late, Presteign. I've already adopted you.»
Presteign took Foyle's arm. «You must be presented to my daughter, Lady Olivia. Will you allow me?»
They crossed the reception hall. Foyle hesitated, wondering whether he should call Robin to his side for impending emergencies, but he was too triumphant. He doesn't know. He'll never know. Then doubt came: But I'll never know if he does know. He's crucible steel. He could teach me a thing or two about control.
Acquaintances hailed Fourmyle.
«Wonderful deception you worked in Shanghai.»
«Marvelous carnival in Rome, wasn't it? Did you hear about the burning man who appeared on the Spanish Stairs?»
«We looked for you in London.»
«What a heavenly entrance that was,» Harry Sherwin-Williams called. «Outdid us all, Fourmyle. Made us look like a pack of damned pikers.»
«You forget yourself, Harry,» Presteign said coldly. «You know I permit no profanity in my home.»
«Sorry, Presteign. Where's the circus now, Fourmyle?»
«I don't know,» Foyle said. «Just a moment.»
A crowd gathered, gri
«Ahhh. . . whatever your name is. . . Where are we staying just now?» The answer was tiny and ti
«Oh? Did I? And?»
«We bought St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fourmyle.»
«And where is that?»
«Old St. Patrick's, Fourmyle. On Fifth Avenue and what was formerly 5oth Street. We've pitched the camp inside.»
«Thank you.» Fourmyle closed the platinum Hunter. «My address is Old St. Patrick's, New York. There's one thing to be said for the outlawed religions . . . At least they built churches big enough to house a circus.»
Olivia Presteign was seated on a dais, surrounded by admirers paying court to this beautiful albino daughter of Presteign. She was strangely and wonderfully blind, for she could see in the infrared only, from 7,500 angstroms to one millimeter wave lengths, far below the normal visible spectrum. She saw heat waves, magnetic fields, radio waves; she saw her admirers in a strange light of organic emanations against a background of red radiation.
She was a Snow Maiden, an Ice Princess with coral eyes and coral lips, imperious, mysterious, unattainable. Foyle looked at her once and lowered his eyes in confusion before the blind gaze that could only see him as electromagnetic waves and infrared light. His pulse began to beat faster; a hundred lightning fantasies about himself and Olivia Presteign flashed in his heart.
«Don't be a fool!» he thought desperately. «Control yourself. Stop dreaming. This can be dangerous . .
He was introduced; was addressed in a husky, silvery voice; was given a cool, slim hand; but the hand seemed to explode within his with an electric shock. It was almost a start of mutual recognition . . . almost a joining of emotional impact.
«This is insane. She's a symbol. The Dream Princess. . . The Unattainable . . .Control!»
He was fighting so hard that he scarcely realized he had been dismissed, graciously and indifferently. He could not believe it. He stood, gaping like a lout.
«What? Are you still here, Fourmyle?»
«I couldn't believe I'd been dismissed, Lady Olivia.»
«Hardly that, but I'm afraid you are in the way of my friends.»
«I'm not used to being dismissed. (No. No. All wrong!) At least by someone I'd like to count as a friend.»
«Don't be tedious, Fourmyle. Do step down.»
«How have I offended you?»
«Offended me? Now you're being ridiculous.»
«Lady Olivia. . . (Can't I say anything right? Where's Robin?) Can we start again, please?»
«If you're trying to be gauche, Fourmyle, you're succeeding admirably.»
«Your hand again, please. Thank you. I'm Fourmyle of Ceres.»
«All right.» She laughed. «I'll concede you're a clown. Now do step down. I'm sure you can find someone to amuse.»
«What's happened this time?»
«Really, sir, are you trying to make me angry?»
«No. (Yes, I am. Trying to touch you somehow. . . cut through the ice.) The first time our handclasp was . . . violent. Now it's nothing. What happened?»