Emotionally, she had wanted to grant every one of them, feeling that there was simply no justification in wealthy America to deny anyone whose needs were so evident. And, in fact, for the first three weeks on the job she had granted relief to ninety percent of the appellants.

But her decisions were subject to review by her superiors, and more than ninety percent of her decisions granting relief had been overturned.

She had then been called before a review board that had the authority to terminate her probationary appointment as an Appeals Officer, Grade I.

It had been pointed out to her, politely but firmly, that she had been employed by the Department of Social Services to adjudicate appeals fairly, and not to effect a redistribution of the wealth of the Commonwealth without regard to the applicable laws and regulations.

She had seriously considered resigning her appointment-an act she knew would please her parents, who were mystified by her choice of employment-but in the end had not, for several reasons.

First, she knew that many, perhaps even most, of the decisions she had made had not been fair, but rather based on her emotional reaction to the pitiful lives of the people who had made the appeals. And second, she decided that she could make adjudications in the future that, while paying attention to the letter of the law, could be tempered with compassion.

Most important in her decision not to resign was her belief that if she stayed on the job, she would be able to make some input into the system that would make it better. It was such a god-awful mess the way it was now, she had thought, that improvement had to be possible.

She hadn't been able to make any improvements to the system in her three years on the job-she now realized that thinking she could have had been really naive-and she had been forced to accept that a substantial number of the appeals she was called upon to adjudicate had been made by people who believed there was nothing morally wrong in trying to swindle the state out of anything they could get away with.

But on the other hand, she thought, she had been able to overturn the adverse decisions of a large number of social workers that would really have hurt people with a legitimate entitlement to the small amounts of money provided by the state.

And she had been promoted twice, ultimately to "Appeals Officer, Grade III." And both times she had wondered if she had been promoted because she was doing a good job, or whether someone higher up had examined her record and found it satisfactory using the percentage of appeals rejected as the criterion.

Susan looked at the photograph of the Bennington girls on her shelf-Jennifer Ollwood was standing next to her in the picture-then shifted the frame slightly.

She picked up her purse and left her office, stopping at the adjacent office, of Appeals Officer, Grade IV, Veronica Haynes, a black woman who, Susan had decided, believed that the only people who should receive aid from the state were the aged in the last few weeks of their terminal illness.

"If anybody asks, Veronica, I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

Veronica smiled at her. "Couple, as in two? Or several, as if you're going out for coffee?"

"Several, wiseass," Susan said, smiling, and walked to the elevators.

On the way down, she looked in her coin purse and found that it held two nickels and a dime.

Somewhat reluctantly, the proprietress of the lobby newsstand, an obese harridan with orange hair, changed two dollars into silver for her. Susan found an empty telephone booth and went in.

Jennifer answered on the second ring. Her voice seemed hesitant.

"Hello?"

"It's me."

"That didn't take long."

"I hurried. What's up?"

"Are you planning to come this way anytime soon?"

"I hadn't planned on it," Susan said.

But I could. Daffy asked me please, please come to her husband's birthday party.

"I'd really like to see you," Jennie said.

"And I'd like to see the baby," Susan said.

"Bryan has something he wants you to keep for him. For us," Jennie said.

So that's what this is all about. Damn him!

Bryan was Bryan Chenowith.

If I had a file on him, he would be categorized as "Father of (illegitimate) child, residing with mother. Employable, but not employed."

"How's the baby?" Susan asked.

"Wonderful!" Jennie said, her voice reflecting the pride of the new mother.

"I can't wait to see him," Susan said.

"Then you can come?"

"Daffy's having a birthday party for Chad," Susan said. "On Saturday. She's called me twice, begging me to come. You know what I think of him."

"Is it too late to change your mind?" Jennie asked, a hint of desperation in her voice. "Philadelphia's not far from here."

"I could call her," Susan said.

"In for a penny. In for a pound," as they say.

"That's a 'yes'?"

"I want to see the baby," Susan said, as much to herself as to Jennie.

"Will you stay with Daffy?"

"No," Susan said. "Probably the Bellvue."

"You'll drive down Saturday morning?"

"Right."

"I'll call the hotel and tell you when and where to meet me," Jennie said.

"You don't want to tell me now?"

"I'd better come up with a plan," Jennie said, giggling.

"Okay. I'll be at the hotel after twelve, I guess. Why don't you call me about one?"

"I will."

"Is there anything I can bring you?"

"No. Thank you, but no. We're doing fine."

Said the noble bride from the deck of the sinking ship.

"Well, then, I'll see you over the weekend," Susan said.

"I really love you, you know that," Jennie said, and the phone went dead.

Susan made two more telephone calls before going back to her office. The first was to Daphne Elizabeth Browne Nesbitt, who was also in the photograph of the Bennington girls on Susan's bookshelf. She told Daffy that her plans had changed and that she now could come to Chad's party, if that would be all right.

Daffy said she would have the crиme de la crиme of Philadelphia's bachelors lined up for her selection.

I was afraid of that. It was another reason I didn't want to come to your asshole of a husband's birthday party.

"I would rather snag my men on my own hook, Daffy. Thank you just the same."

"Don't be silly," Daffy said. "Advertising pays. Ask Chad about that. And besides, we have to stick together, don't we? Help each other out?"

Oh, do we ever!

"Right," Susan said. "See you Saturday."

Then Susan called her mother and told her that she had changed her mind about going to Chad Nesbitt's birthday party in Philadelphia over the weekend.

"Well, baby, I'm very glad to hear that," Susan's mother replied.

"Mother, would you call the Bellvue and see about a room? It's so close to the weekend that I'm afraid-"

"No, I won't," her mother replied. "But I will call Mrs. Samuelson. She's very good at that sort of thing."

Mrs. Dorothy Samuelson was her father's executive assistant, and she was, indeed, very good at things like that. It was what Susan had hoped her mother would do, pass the buck to Mrs. Samuelson.

Now that she had committed herself to Jennie, she would need to have a room in the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel.