The Last Gentleman

voice—“it is this infinitely dreary amalgam of Fundamentalism and racism.”
    â€œNo, no, no,” groaned Jamie loudly, actually holding his head. “What do I care about that. That’s not it.” He glared at Rita angrily, embarrassing the engineer, who was aware of Rita’s strong bid for low-pitched confidential talk and didn’t mind obliging her. “This is all irrelevant,” cried Jamie, looking behind him as if he was expecting someone. “I just don’t care about that.”
    â€œWhat do you care about?” asked Rita after a moment
    â€œIt’s just that—I can’t explain.”
    â€œJamie wants to get away,” said the engineer. “He would like to spend some time in a new place and live a simple life without the old associations—such as, for example, parking the camper on a stretch of beach.”
    â€œThat is correct,” said Jamie instantly and soberly.
    â€œListen who’s telling me that,” said Rita. “What in the world have I been saying all summer?” She spoke to them earnestly. Why didn’t they finish the semester and join her in her house in Tesuque? Better still, she and Kitty could go now, since credit hours were more important to men than women—everyone made a fuss over Jamie’s credit hours—get the place ready and the two young men could join them later. “I’m calling your bluff, Tiger. You can kill two birds with one stone. You can have your new life and you can get out of the closed society at the same time.”
    Jamie frowned irritably. He opened his mouth.
    â€œAh, that’s fine, Rita,” said the engineer. “That really sounds wonderful. But I think Jamie has in mind something right away, now, this minute.” He rose. “Jamie.”
    â€œNow wait a minute,” said Kitty, smoothing down her sweater, taking a final peep at the two pins (to think she is mine! rejoiced the engineer, all her sweet cashmered self!). “Whoa now. Not so fast. I think yall are all crazy. I’m going to the game and I’m going to the dance and I’m going to school tomorrow morning.” She rose. “I’ll meet yall in the garage at six thirty.”
    To the engineer’s surprise, Jamie made no protest. Something had mollified him. At any rate he said no more about leaving and presently rose wearily and invited the engineer to the apartment for a bedside game of gin rummy. It pleased him to play a single snug game, pull the beds together and direct a small disk of light upon the tray between them where the cards were stacked.
    Son Junior and his father started their favorite argument about Big Ten versus Southeastern Conference football.
    â€œThe Big Ten on the whole is better,” said Son glumly. “You have your ten teams, one as good as any other.”
    â€œYes,” said Lamar, “but there are always two or three teams in the Southeast which could take any of them. And don’t you think the Big Ten doesn’t know it. I happen to know that both Alabama and Ole Miss have been trying for years to schedule Ohio State and Michigan. Nothing doing and I don’t blame them.”
    At that moment Myra, Lamar’s wife, came into the pantry and the engineer was glad to have an excuse to leave. She would, he knew, do one of two things. Both were embarrassing. She would either quarrel with her husband or make up to Rita, whom she admired. It was a dread performance in either case, one from which, it is true, a certain amount of perverse skin-prickling pleasure could be taken, but not much.
    Here she came toward Rita and as certain as certain could be she would make a fool of herself. Something about Rita made her lose her head. The night before, Kitty and Rita were talking, almost seriously, of going to Italy instead of New Mexico. Rita had lived once in Ferrara, she said, in a house where one of Lucrezia’s husbands was said to have been murdered. Oh yes, broke in Myra, she knew all about Lucrezia Bori, the woman who had started St. Bartholomew’s Massacre. And on and on she went with a mishmash about the Huguenots—her mother’s family were Huguenots from South Carolina, etc. She had not the means of stopping herself. The engineer lowered his eyes.
    â€œPardon me,” said Rita at last. “Who is it we are talking about? Lucrezia Bori, the opera singer, the Duchess of Ferrara, Lucrezia Borgia, or