"Charles L. Harness - The Rose" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

main whim for the past few years has been her errant husband, Mr. Ruy Jacques."

"Do you think she really loves him?"

"Just between me and you, she hates his guts. So naturally she doesn't want any other woman to get him.
She has him watched, of course. The Security Bureau cooperate with alacrity, because they don't want
foreign agents to approach her through him. There have been ugly rumors of assassinated models...But
I'm digressing." He cocked a quizzical eye at her. "Permit me to repeat the invitation of your unknown
admirer. Like you, he's another true child of the new Renaissance. The two of you should find much in
common—more than you can now guess. I'm very serious about this, Anna. Seek him out
immediately—tonight—now. There aren't any mirrors in the Via."

"Please, Matt."

"Honey," he growled, "to a man my age you aren't ugly. And this man's the same. If a woman is pretty, he
paints her and forgets her. But if she's some kind of an artist, he talks to her, and he can get rather
endless sometimes. If it's any help to your self-assurance, he's about the homeliest creature on the face of
the earth. You'll look like de Milo alongside him."

The woman laughed shortly. "I can't get mad at you, can I? Is he married?"

"Sort of." His eyes twinkled. "But don't let that concern you. He's a perfect scoundrel."

"Suppose I decide to look him up. Do I simply run up and down the Via paging all homely friends of Dr.
Matthew Bell?"

"Not quite. If I were you I'd start at the entrance—where they have all those queer side-shows and
one-man exhibitions. Go on past the vendress of love philters and work down the street until you find a
man in a white suit with polka dots."

"How perfectly odd! And then what? How can I introduce myself to a man whose name I don't know?
Oh, Matt, this is so silly, so childish..."

He shook his head in slow denial. "You aren't going to think about names when you see him. And your
name won't mean a thing to him, anyway. You'll be lucky if you aren't 'hey you' by midnight. But it isn't
going to matter."

"It isn't too clear why you don't offer to escort me." She studied him calculatingly. "And I think you're
withholding his name because you know I wouldn't go if you revealed it."

He merely chuckled.

She lashed out: "Damn you, get me a cab."

"I've had one waiting half an hour."

Chapter Two
"Tell ya what the professor's gonna do, ladies and gentlemen. He's gonna defend not just one paradox.
Not just two. Not just a dozen. No, ladies and gentlemen, the professor's gonna defend seventeen, and
all in the space of one short hour, without repeating himself, and including a brand-new one he has just