Promise of Joy Read Online Free Page B

President of the United States!”
    “Well,” she says, smiling a little in response to his deliberately joshing tone, “it may have its humorous aspects, but even so—”
    “And why are you so gloomy and apprehensive all of a sudden?” he asks, not knowing now that one day he will look back and wonder if she was the only one of the four about to meet at the Monument Grounds who felt that way. “I’ve been anointed by the Times, the Post, the networks, Walter Dobius, the Russians, the Chinese and the whole wide world—not very heartily, but they’ve done it. Ted Jason is going to keep me on the straight and narrow, the forces of imperialistic reaction have been put in check, God’s in His heaven and all’s right with the world. We’re going to be under the greatest security and protection the country’s ever seen, today, so we might as well relax and enjoy it. Anyway, Hank”—and though still joking a bit, he becomes more serious—“you’d better not keep on in this vein or you really will give me the heebie-jeebies. And I can’t afford to have them. Too much depends on how we launch this campaign. Plus the fact that it’s all out of character, for you. You don’t normally go off on this kind of tangent.”
    “No,” she says, rising with a smile and sudden decisive air that brings him a feeling of genuine relief, for he has been more disturbed by her uneasiness than he has wanted her to know. “It isn’t, and I apologize for being gloomy. I know we’re protected, I know everything is going to be all right. I expect we’d better go down. They must be almost ready for us.”
    “Of course,” he says, suddenly serious, a perverse but inescapable reaction now that she is abandoning the subject, “if you really have a hunch, Hank—”
    “Nonsense,” she says firmly, linking her arm through his as they hear cars and motorcycles downstairs, a sudden bustle through the lower part of the house which indicates that it is time for them to go and keep their appointment with the country. “It was just a thought, and a foolish one at that. Come along, maximum leader. Your panting multitudes await.”
    “I hope they’ll like what I have to say,” he replies, and abruptly he turns and takes her face between his hands.
    “Thank you for everything, Hank,” he says softly. “For all the kindnesses, down all the years.”
    She blushes, a rare thing for Beth Knox, looking suddenly very shy and, in some curious way that of course does not exist except in mind and memory, youthful and freshly beautiful again as she had been when they first began courting.
    “It’s mutual, my dear,” she says. She returns his kiss youthfully, too, and then, with a little smile at herself for not resisting the urge to become practical again, “Be good today. They expect a lot from you, and you have a lot to give.”
    “Hank,” he says with a sudden enthusiasm, almost boyish in his turn, “with you beside me, I can’t be anything else but good. We’ve got a great four years ahead of us. A great four years!”
    “Well, we know one thing, anyway,” she says with a chuckle as the first sirens begin below. “It won’t be dull.”

    So the hour of acceptance comes bright and hot and clear, and from all the corners of the two cities, all the corners of the nation, the great throng gathers on the Monument Grounds around the stark white obelisk to fatherly George. Krishna Khaleel, the Ambassador of India; Soviet Ambassador Vasily Tashikov and his agricultural/secret police attaché; British Ambassador Lord Maudulayne and Lady Kitty; French Ambassador Raoul Barre and Celestine; and almost all their colleagues of the diplomatic corps, are there. Somewhere in the enormous multitude that laughs and yells and chatters, shoves and pushes and jostles in amiable contest for position, are the brilliant, twisted young black, LeGage Shelby, chairman of Defenders of Equality for You (DEFY); pompous, dough-faced Rufus Kleinfert, Knight