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Show 263 "It might interest you to know," Sorenson went on, placidly preparing his bombshell, "that all three of them broke with Joseph Smith later on and left the church, but they all swore to the end of their lives that they saw the angel." She looked interested. "Yeah?" Lorin meantime having already said more than he had intended to, had been amusing himself by studying Richard, who grew fidgety and pretended not to notice. When he got tired of that he allowed his attention to wander over to what looked like a heel print on the wall next to the light switch, and from there to the porch light that shone orange and blurred through the front window curtain, and from there to the ceramic mandarin on the round table in front of the window; then to a painting on the wall above Alice's head, that appeared to be of stemless daisies flung across a background of yellow paste; then finally to Alice herself, just as the discussion turned to the angel hovering in the air in Joseph Smith's bedroom. Until that moment he had not connected her with the wispy creature of his borderline dream last night, who had stroked him through his temple garments and breathed gently into his ear, and then had floated away against a cloud-flecked ceiling, her mouth covered by a hand, her eyes brimming mirth. The interlude had been neither very imaginative nor very long; he had vaguely supposed it was a lingering warm shadow of Gloriana and had gone to sleep mildly tumescent, planning to save up for a detailed fantasy later on. Realizing now that he had been mistaken, he received a small and not unpleasant jolt. It put her in a different light to find her drifting into his subconscious already. For the next several minutes he paid close attention to her out of the corner of his eye. She chewed her nails, he noticed. He hadn't noticed that before. He didn't like that, |