Occasionally, if there was nothing of interest on television, Harry and Louise Overton played “featured actor.” They would call back and forth the names of supporting players from films of the thirties and early forties. The object was to slip in a fictitious name without being caught. Three unchallenged false names won the game.

As usual, Louise began, looking up from her copy of McCall’s and smiling. She was a thin, pretty woman with slightly bucked teeth. Years earlier, someone—it might have been Harry himself—had remarked that the mild deformity added a charming, gamine touch to her features. The compliment had banished the stiffness that had long haunted her upper lip. “Douglas Fowley,” she said without warning.