Demon Child

entertaining them without seeming to dominate the conversation. He would have made, she thought, the perfect guest on one of those late-night television talk shows. Even if he had not been so interesting to listen to, he could have held an audience with those cool, bright blue eyes.
        From time to time, she remembered the things Richard had said on the phone this morning, the things she had overheard from the stairs. That talk had been about killing and drugs. Or had seemed to be. It was always difficult to judge the import of a conversation only half heard, and she had no idea what the person on the other end of the line had said. And now, sitting at this heavily-laden table, listening to Hobarth recount a story from his college days, Richard seemed nothing more than the quiet, charming cousin who had reassured her during that time of crisis seven years ago -the same rather dashing figure who had escorted her from the bus terminal only a few days earlier.
        When she caught her attention wandering in this way, she forced herself to listen to Hobarth. Whatever Richard was involved in, she wasn't going to let him spoil this evening, the brightest spot in her life for many weeks.
        Later, alone in her room, mulling over the evening, she felt that the good doctor had paid special attention to her. If his manners had been good with the others, they were excellent with her. If his eyes had gleamed when he spoke to Cora and Richard, they positively glowed when he addressed her. If his quiet appreciation of Cora's beauty had been genuine, his regard for Jenny had been enthusiastic.
        Or was she fantasizing?
        She frowned, looking down at her nails, her mind drifting in a thin haze. A gun might have been fired next to her ear, now, without engaging her attention.
        She did not approve of women who faced the world with a false optimism. It was never good to pretend that things were better than they actually were. A woman should be a realist. The romanticists were the ones who turned around, smiling, and discovered disaster creeping up on them. But if you always expected disaster, you were not disappointed when it came to you. And if you got a better break than you thought, it seemed like the most marvelous of blessings.
        So what about Dr. Walter Hobarth?
        Any woman, she thought, would be somewhat overwhelmed by such a gentleman, a man who combined good looks with an education, wit and charm. Aunt Cora must have felt that Hobarth had paid her special attention. Even Anna surely would forget her kitchen long enough to sigh at the sight of Walter Hobarth. Whether he was aware of it or not, he could hardly affect a woman negatively.
        Still, on the chance that he had been paying special attention to her, she would have to take better care of her fingernails and pay more attention to the way she dressed.
        She laughed, breaking the odd trance that had settled over her. As long as Dr. Hobarth was around, the women of the Brucker estate were going to be uncommonly well-groomed and graceful!
        She spent half an hour on her nails.
        She gave her hair a hundred strokes with her brush, a beauty habit she had gotten out of lately.
        She slept well that night.
        She did not dream.
        
        She saw Hobarth three times on Sunday. Every time, she felt herself losing hold of that hard-headed common sense she had acquired in the past. She felt warm when she spoke with him, and she was filled with an unexplainable giddiness that was not like her.
        The first encounter was in the kitchen, Sunday morning. He was sitting at the large worktable with an enormous breakfast spread out before him. His platter had three fried eggs, half a dozen strips of bacon, and three slices of buttered toast. There was a pot of steaming coffee on his right, a plate of danish pastries on his left, and a serving plate of buttermilk hotcakes directly before him.
        “So Anna has gotten hold of you!” Jenny said, laughing.
        Hobarth grinned, dimpled his cheeks. “Fortunately, I don't have to lie about the quality. It's all excellent.”
        “And you sit down right here,” Anna said. “I never can get you to eat a decent breakfast. But that doesn't mean I've given up trying!”
        Jenny took the chair to Hobarth's left while the older woman hurried back to the stove and the refrigerator and embarked upon a second cooking spree. She