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Show 257 half a loaf of warm bread. Sorenson had sat blinking miserably behind his glasses on one side of Lorin, while on the other side their host had slouched, yawned, smiled ironically, scowled, pulled at his wool socks and chewed at a hangnail. Alice, directly across the room from Lorin, had sat upright and attentive, her arms locked around her knees, her eyes shining. Thus encouraged, he had told the story of his great-grandmother and the visitation from her dead daughter, and was about to t e l l the story of his own v i s i t from a Nephite years ago in a machine shop where he worked one summer but remembered in time that she didn't know what a Nephite was. He did manage to work in one anecdote about a seer stone before Alice, responding to a gesture from Richard, reminded everybody that i t was late and they had better stop all this and go to bed. They had been invited back, though. That was the Important thing. Sorenson could not c r i t i c i ze i f they had been invited back. Lorin had made the usual sounds as they were getting ready to leave, and Alice, ignoring her husband's pained expression, had said she guessed i t would be all right i f they came back as long as they didn't stay too long. She hadn't had a talk like this with anybody for months. There had been less promising foot-in-the-door starts, in other words, whatever the unusual character of this one. Lorin was, he couldn't deny i t , pleased, so pleased that he let Sorenson have all the credit for the other return invitations they got that week, and never once disrupted a f i r s t discussion with something that belonged in a later one. He even promised himself he would be quiet and l e t Sorenson do the talking on their second v i s i t to the Klines, which he was looking forward to with more pleasure than usual. He was relieved that something could give him pleasure at all just |
