"They've got their share," Fran said. "But we mustn't be vulnerable. By submitting needlessly," she said, "we are vulnerable. No. I know what I've got to do. I'm going to that meeting Monday night." And, answering the sudden pallor on Sue's face, "If I didn't we'd lose our authenticity and the very right to recover it. I venture to say our old age would find us a couple of fretting and morose old spinsters."

"But what will become of us?" Sue said. Her usual bent for levity was missing in these words.

Sue wondered what might be happening to Fran at the meeting this very moment. She tucked her sandled feet closer beneath her. With thumb and finger she circled her ankle. Her left hand was occupied with the script on her lapthe two first fingers clamping the upper left corner of it. Sue was aware of the watch on her wrist. Throwing her feet out from under her, she jumped to the floor and strode across the room to the cabinet by the bay window. She drew out a bottle of sherry and poured herself a drink. At intervals she'd glance at her watch until the script reading and the lighting of a cigarette and the pouring of a glass of sherry became the intervals themselves and the glancing at the time. became an almost uninterrupted watching. She was doing just that when Fran came in after the meeting.

"Well?" Sue said.

Fran's reply was silence. She hung her brown tweed coat in the front closet and put the contents of its pockets on the mantle, meticulously as usual. "My dearest," Fran said laconically.

"Well! what!" Sue didn't like the endearing words; although she wasn't conciously thinking of it, the tone was reminiscent of a doctor to his dying patient. "I've been waiting for you half the night! For godsake tell me!”

“You know, Sue, darling." Fran tapped the cigarette tip on her thumbnail, “I think it's everybody and nobody."

"What?"

"Everyone looked suspect to me at first. Them”,” she said. “Don't you see? It was the 'they' of whom we were afraid."

"Everyone and no one," Sue said in a low mocking undertone. "What kind of reasoning's that? I suppose that phone call last night was just a figment of your imagination; that those threats were simply imaginings to while away the time, a pleasantry to dynamite the ennui. You wanted to feel unbearably frightened in order to . . .

"It's the proverbial skeleton in the closet." Fran said. "When a person feels like that closet's going to be opened he chooses a scapegoat to divert attention from...

"The closet? But why us?"

"Why not us?" Fran said. "We're the most likely because we haven't a skeleton to be dug up ours is more immediate, more accessible. Ours is the flesh and blood of the now. Who ever made that phone call was desperate. She either knew about us or suspected . . ."

"Who!"

"I don't know. Yet. Nothing happened."

"Why the cagey silence? Don't you think she'll do you in next time? What guarantee have you that she won't cry wolf?"

15