Advise and Consent by Allen Drury Page A

yet, but someone will before long. I am sure of it.”
    “Yes,” said Lord Maudulayne. “I will. I am. What do you think?”
    “Always unpredictable, always,” Raoul Barre said with a mock sigh. “First the Sphinx and then the bulldoze. Well, I wonder if I should tell you.”
    “I think you should,” Claude Maudulayne said. “I definitely think you should. Our hosts will be after us, you know; we can’t escape them for long. By all means let’s have a united front, old boy.”
    “The Americans!” said Raoul Barre with a real sigh this time. “They pin one down so. I shall tell them for the moment—not much. After all, the President must deem this man worthy to be our prophet on the road to greater salvation, or he would not have nominated him. I am sure he is quite as adept at combining sermons and sleight of hand as all the others have been lately.”
    “You sound bitter,” Lord Maudulayne observed; his colleague snorted.
    “I?” he said in an exaggerated tone. “ I? ”
    “So you are doubtful, then?” the British Ambassador said.
    “I am,” the French Ambassador agreed. “Very. I do not know which way this American animal is going to jump, you know? He is scared and he is lazy; it is a fateful combination. And he cannot yet quite believe that this tune he need not send to ask about the bell tolling, for this time it really could be tolling for him. He cannot grasp it yet; when he suddenly understands, what then? What will he do? That is what I wonder. It is what I wonder about Bob Leffingwell.”
    “There are others I would feel more comfortable with at a time like this,” Lord Maudulayne agreed.
    “Several,” Raoul Barre said. “If my friends in the Senate ask me, I shall be polite—and reluctant. I shall indicate a doubt, perhaps, to those astute enough to see it, of whom there are a good many in that great body.”
    “That was my own idea,” Claude Maudulayne said. “I just wanted to see if you agreed. I thought perhaps on this we had best see eye to eye.”
    “I believe so,” Raoul Barre said. “I do believe so. After all these years of telling us that we all survive or go down together, they have finally created a situation in which it is true. We didn’t want it to be that way, but they fought for us and aided us and told us what was best for backward peoples whose progress didn’t match theirs and lectured at us and negotiated with us and prayed over us until it came true. Now we are stuck with them. If they go, we go. We all go. And that includes that deliberate dream of gentlemen in London and elsewhere who insist on staying asleep because the dream is so pleasant, your delightful Elizabeth’s Commonwealth and Empire. What do you hear from the Indians?”
    “K.K. is at UN,” Lord Maudulayne said. “I hear nothing yet. I understand he will be at Dolly’s. I may hear something then.”
    “I too shall offer an attentive ear to the exquisitely involved English of our distinguished colleague,” Raoul Barre said dryly. “I do not know that I shall learn, but I shall listen.”
    “I too,” Lord Maudulayne said. “Thanks for your time and your advice. We will see you at Dolly’s. Don’t forget Celestine’s orchid.”
    “Immediately,” said Raoul Barre.

    “Darling,” Dolly said when her call finally reached the Majority Leader in his second office on the gallery floor of the Senate wing, “I just wanted to see how you were feeling. I just wanted to know if there was anything I could do about Bob Leffingwell.”
    Bob Munson smiled.
    “Not much,” he said, “except be your usual charming self tonight and see that everybody mixes. We want a lot of mixing about Bob, the more mixing the better.”
    “How does it look so far?” Dolly asked.
    Senator Munson grunted. “I’ve been so tied down by mail and calls in my other office I’ve hardly had time to find out. I wanted to get out around a little before the session began, but there were too many things to do. Most