Free From Time to Time by Jack Finney

young man who had given the gold coin to Apple Mary, she looked lovely. I had to hear, had to, and walked in to stand close, hiding my bloody hands at niv sides.
    "Mv dear, may I present my young friend, her father was saying, "Mr. Otto Danziger, and I watched the tall young man bow, knowing that what had happened had happened, and that I was too late. Now they'd met, these two v oung people. I hadn't quite been able to prevent it. And now, in time, they would marry, and have a son. And I knew that far ahead, in the twentieth century I'd left, that son was a man long since grown, Dr. F. 11 Danziger-the Project he'd begun in the old Beekey warehouse still functioning under the control of Major Ruben Prien and Colonel Esterhazy, and whatever it was they represented.
    But now these were thoughts of a far-off future I no longer belonged in, and I looked again at the handsome new couple, and, not knowing I was going to, found myself smiling. Then I turned and walked out.
    The tall man swung in behind Morley as he walked back to Thirtieth Street and turned east. Watching closely, he saw from the slow, painful walk that Morley's urgency was gone. And now he knew it was over; that whatever it was that Morley was attempting had been prevented. He followed for a long block, however, and for half of the next, making sure. Then-he did not know what had happened, didn't know what Morley had intended, but knew he'd done what he'd come for. And at the next corner, Morley walking slowly on ahead, the tall man turned away, and began hunting for a cab.
    Walking down toward Gramercy Park, I looked around me at the world I was in. At the gaslighted brownstones beside me. At the nighttime winter sky. This too was an imperfect world, and I knew it, did not need to be told. But-I drew a deep breath, sharply chilling my lungs-the air was still clean. The rivers flowed fresh, as they had since time began. And the first of the terrible corrupting great wars still lay decades ahead. I reached Lexington Avenue, turned south, and then, the yellow lights of Gramercy Park waiting at the end of the street, I walked on toward Number 19.
    At a ticket window in the small red brick Grand Central station, John McNaughton leaned toward the row of vertical brass rods between him and the waiting clerk. "Winfield, he said. "Ticket to Winfield, Vermont.
    "Round trip?
    "No. McNaughton smiled with the pleasure of saving it: "No, I won't be coming back from Winfield. Not ever again.

CHAPTER 6
    JULIA WALKED INTO THE DINING ROOM, set down the big blue-and- white platter of waffles, then walked around to her side of the table. She didn't speak, though I knew she was going to and what she would say. She pulled out her chair first, sat down, managing her long skirts, inched her chair in, slid her napkin from its carved- bone ring, unrolled it on her lap, then placed her bare forearms on the white cloth, wedding ring catching the light for a moment. Watching me, hunting for signs of my mood, she pushed the syrup in its cut-glass flask closer to my reach.
    Finally, voice gentle so as not to rile me, she said, "Si. It's so far away now. And doesn't really concern you. Not anymore. Your Major Prien has had his Project to himself now for-is it three years? Or more. And whatever he's done with it is done.
    I nodded, knowing I ought not be irritable-because I'd had the same guilty thoughts. For months at a time I'd forget the Project, then it would come sneaking back into my mind. I glanced irritably around the room; I didn't like breakfast in here. Too damn dark. Fine at night, winter especially, when we used the fireplace; this was a different room then. But a house stood wall-to-wall on each side of ours, fl() light in here except for the chandelier over the tal)Ie. I 1)referfedl the I)ig round wood tal)le in the kitchen, the room full of daylight from two tall, round-topped windows overlooking Julia's little garden. But eating in the kitchen was unseemly to Julia, and I