Evening star., 1938-03-27
Continued from pogs seven

fore Batron could stop her - but not
before two Party Militiamen stopped
Lathrop; for they rushed him from
their sentry boxes and got him.
go backw Josephine turned fercely
to Batron.
Il cannot-I dare not, Batron said.
Hes friend of mineI Josephine
said. you must"
''Sit quietly, Madame" He grasped
her wrists in both of his hands. "Sit
quietly" The car picked up speed in
the Palace Drive. The last she saw of
Lathrop through the back window
was his furious. dirty face, yelling at
the men who held him, tearing his
press credentials from his pocket and
waving them. The Car went on up the
approach and drew in under the east
portico of the Palace.
Josephine was ushered at once into
: the Hall of the Princes. That is breath
taking in its massive grandeur. 1t is
not the size Of it that does it, it's the
moving symmetry. 1t is alive. Its
columns move in stately procession
between the black and white Parian
squares of its floor and Carriotti's
golden ceiling.
The portraits are gone - one of
them to Mark Wayne on slick theft
twenty years before. but the bannerets
of the Knights of the Order of St.
Geneve still hung above the carven
ebony stalls, with the black crepe of
death pendant from those at the left
and the white of life from the stalls
of the twenty living knights; for those
bannerets are history from the time of
the Second Crusade. and the State
holds them as fine tradition for pos
terity. even though the Party forbids
the Knights to convocate.
As she and Batron came into the
north end, there was nothing but NOV
ing emptiness in the great hall. Then
as Captain Batron stopped ard saluted,
Josephine saw the Director. standing
at the further end of the hall, tall and
slender against the light of Latre's
gorgeous rose window - waiting there
- an integral part of the whole pic
ture, aloof from it as he always was.
but polite, waiting through an innate
courtesy. not bored. not doing any
thing but waiting. She remembered
from newspaper accounts that it was
part of his ritual that you take three
hundred steps down to him for official
audiences.
Batron bowed to her and she started
alone down the long pathway between
the flanking columns, hearing her foot
falls, feeling suddenly awkward. hold
ing her chin high to fight off her
inclination to stop and shrek at the
RIGHTEOUSNESS of it. But suddenly it
wasn't ridiculous. He was standing
there, still far from her, his arm slung
to his side in black silk - standing on
his feet not quite eight hours after
having tainted in the street from a
compound fracture. The steel of the
man was an actuality then, not part
of Party propaganda. He was watch
ing her closely - every move of her
walk down to him, but there was
nothing of his personal thoughts in
his eyes.
For one awful moment, panic caught
her. She had no faint idea what she
would do or say when she got to him.
Then she was in front of him and be-
fore he could speak she smiled and
said: "How is your arm?'
He said. ''You are very courageous
He was studying her care
fully now. looking at her face as if he
wished to~etch all of the details of it
on his memory so that there would be
no chance OF, his not remembering it
the next time he saw it.