like this when you were all dressed up and going home from an
evening party?

Creak! creak! said the shoes.

Another block lay behind them.

Missy, fighting that sensation of stupidity, in anguished resolution
spoke again: "Just look at the moon--how big it is!" Jim followed
her upward glance. "Yes, it's great," he agreed.

Creak! creak! said the shoes.

A heavy, regularly punctuated pause. "Don't you love moonlight
nights?" persisted Missy.

"Yes--when my shoes don't squeak." He tried to laugh.

Missy tried to laugh too. Creak! creak! said the shoes.

Another block lay behind them.

"Moonlight always makes me feel--"

She paused. What was it moonlight always made her feel? Hardly
hearing what she was saying, she made herself reiterate banalities
about the moon. Her mind flew upward to the moon--Jim's downward to
his squeaking shoes. She lived at the other end of town from Raymond
Bonner's house, and the long walk was made up of endless
intermittent perorations on the moon, on squeaking shoes. But the