Free A Shade of Difference by Allen Drury Page A

always be”—and now that Dolly has finally landed Bob Munson after long and diligent effort, she is finding that she, too, is drawn constantly to the best show in town. The best, and, with the House, the most important, in the opinion of the Congressional wives. The ambassadorial, knowing that here in these chambers United States foreign policies are implemented and American money is approved for distribution abroad, are inclined to agree.
    While Tom August drones on about the aid bill, interrupted occasionally by heckling questions from Paul Hendershot of Indiana and Victor Ennis of California, five busy minds of five busy ladies click away like efficient little machines. Beth Knox, thinking over the telephone call that comes faithfully from Orrin every day that he is away from her, recalls that last night he expressed a genuine worry about the latest developments at the UN. The M’Bulu of Mbuele is vividly present in Beth’s mind, for Orrin has told her without embroidery exactly the problems posed by that shrewd young figure: the possibility that the United States, though it will do its best to seek a compromise, may yet have to break with Britain on the issue; the possibility that France, still courting the favor of the young African states she released to independence, may also find herself forced to certain imperatives of national interest; the possibility, not yet supported by real proof but always present, that the Soviets may seek and in Gorotoland possibly find one more African foothold; and the Secretary’s additional uneasy feeling that “this boy is a hell-raiser and I don’t know where he will jump next.”
    Added to that, Beth’s own feeling of incompleteness when Orrin is away, and she has a good deal to contemplate as Tom August rambles along; added also the fact that just before she left the big comfortable house in Spring Valley for the Hill she received another phone call, this one from Springfield, Illinois. Her son Hal and her daughter-in-law, Senator Stanley Danta’s daughter Crystal, had burbled over with the news that the Knoxes would presently be grandparents. This too, understandably, gives her much to think about.
    For Dolly Munson, reflecting her husband’s concern with getting the Senate session concluded, the problems are also of a domestic, though somewhat less emotional, nature: whether she should have one last quick cocktail party and buffet at “Vagaries” on Saturday night, or whether Congress will have left town by then so that everyone of any importance will be gone—whether she should tell the advance crew of servants to leave for Michigan to open the house in Grosse Pointe next Monday or whether she and Bob should stay over a week and just enjoy Washington and the Valley of Virginia in the beautiful fall weather without having to worry about the Senate, Congress, government, social obligations, or anything else—whether it might not even be best for Bob to take him away altogether, arrange a quick reservation on Cunard to Europe, and do their relaxing in London and Rome. Being married to the Majority Leader has brought with it many subtle responsibilities Dolly never really found out about in her first unhappy marriage. The basic problem of how to take care of a man, which Beth knew instinctively on the day she first met Orrin in college, is only now being fully understood by Dolly.
    Kitty Maudulayne, who, like Beth, never doubted from the moment she first saw Claude come riding over the green meadows and stone fences of Crale that this was what life had planned for her, is also concerned to some extent with domestic matters and the possibility of a brief vacation. But being Kitty, loving politics, and very thoroughly aware of the problems implicit in representing a steadily withdrawing power in a world of aggressively advancing forces, she is also vitally concerned with matters at the UN. They come sharply into focus as she watches the handsome young Congressman from