Corridors of Power by C.P. Snow

A week after Lufkin's birthday, I was standing in a crowded drawing-room at the American Ambassador's house, deafened by the party's surge and swell. Margaret and I had been exchanging a word or two with the wife of J C Smith, Collingwood's nephew. I had not met her before. She was a short, slender woman, dark, attractive in a muted way, not very talkative. I wondered incuriously why I hadn't seen her husband's name in Hansard for so long. She passed away from us. Someone else called out to Margaret, and in the huddle I found myself against David Rubin.

Soon I was shaking my fingers to restore the circulation while he looked at me with sombre-eyed Schadenfreude. I had asked for whisky with plenty of ice, and had got it: the glass was so thin that my hand had become numbed with cold. Just then, one of the embassy counsellors came towards Rubin, looking for him, not drifting in the party's stream. Although he knew me well, his manner was constrained. After a few cordialities, he apologized and took Rubin aside.