I look at the dance floor. "I should say that's as near he ever got to a women."

"He dances very badly," she said.

"Yes."

"But he looks a nice reliable man."

"Yes."

"Can I sit with you for a little? My friends are very dull."

The music stopped and Pyle bowed stiffly to Phuong, then led her back and drew out her chair. I could tell that

formality pleased her. I thought how much she missed in her relation to me.

"This is Phuong's sister," I said to Pyle. "Miss Hei."

"I'm very pleased to meet you," he said and blushed.

"You come from New York?" she asked.

''No. From Boston."

"That is in the United States too?"

"Oh yes. Yes."

"Is your father a business man?"

"Not really. He's a professor."

"A teacher?" she asked with a faint note of disappointment.

"Well, he's a kind of authority, you know. People consult him."

"About health? Is he a doctor?"

"Not that sort of doctor. He's a doctor of engineering though. He understands all about underwater erosion. You know what that is?"

"No."

Pyle said with a dim attempt at humour,

"Well, I'll leave it to Dad to tell you about that."

"He is here?"

"0h, no."

"But he is coming?"

"No. That was just a joke," Pyle said apologetically.

"Have you got another sister?" I asked Miss Hei.

"No. Why?"

"It sounds as though you were examining Mr. Pyle's marriage ability."

"I have only one sister," Miss Hei said, and she clamped her hand heavily down on Phuong's knee like a chairman with his gavel marking a point of order.

"She's a very pretty sister," Pyle said.

"She is the most beautiful girl in Saigon," Miss Hei said as though she were correcting him.

"I can believe it."

I said, "It's time we ordered dinner. Even the most beautiful girl in Saigon must eat."

"I am not hungry," Phuong said.

"She is delicate," Miss Hei went firmly on. There was a note of menace in her voice. "She needs care. She deserves care. She is very, very loyal."

"My friend is a lucky man," Pyle said gravely.

"She loves children," Miss Hei said.

I laughed and then caught Pyle's eye: he was looking at me with shocked surprise, and suddenly it occurred to me that he was genuinely interested in what Miss Hei had to say. While I was ordering dinner (though Phuong had told me she was not hungry, I knew she could manage a good steak tartare with two raw eggs and etceteras), I listened to him seriously discussing the question of children.

"I've always thought I'd like a lot of children," he said. "A big family's a wonderful interest. It makes for the stability of marriage. And it's good for the children too. I was an only child. It's a great disadvantage being an only child."

I had never heard him talk so much before.

"How old is your father?" Miss Hei asked with gluttony.

"Sixty-nine."

"Old people love grandchildren. It is very sad that my sister has no parents to rejoice in her children. When the day comes," she added with a baleful look at me.

"Nor you either," Pyle said, rather unnecessarily I thought.

"Our father was of a very good family. He was a mandarin in Hue."

I said, "I've ordered dinner for all of you."

"Not for me," Miss Hei said. "I must be going to my friends. I would like to meet Mr. Pyle again. Perhaps you could manage that."

"When I get back from the north," I said.

"Are you going to the north?"

"I think it's time I had a look at the war."

"But the Press are all back," Pyle said.

"That's the best time for me. I don't have to meet Granger."

"Then you must come and have dinner with me and my sister when Monsieur Fowlair is gone." She added with courtesy, "To cheer her up."

After she had gone Pyle said, "What a charming, cultivated woman. And she spoke English so well."

"Tell him my sister was in business once in Singapore," Phuong said proudly.

"Really? What kind of business?"