Echo was seated at Ralph’s card table, sorting out the pieces of the puzzle. Berry-berry was standing on the other side of the table, looking at her. An unnatural silence was taking place, and Clinton felt it sharply. Echo continued with the puzzle: by family procedure, one began by placing all pieces of like value in separate groups around the edges of the table, and all border pieces in the center. Echo, her cigarette hanging from her lips, moved through this early process with considerable speed, her full attention apparently on the table.

“Why is it,” Berry-berry said, “you have to pretend you’re so goddam interested in that puzzle?”

Echo took her cigarette from her mouth and looked at him with genuine concern. “Berry-berry,” she said, “I’ll stop. This minute, if you want me to. Do you?”

“Don’t you have something to say to me?”

“No, baby, I don’t,” she said gently.

“I think I better have a drink.”

“Will you pour me a thimble, too?” she said.

Berry-berry moved out of Clinton’s line of vision. Apparently he had gone to the kitchen for Ralph’s liquor. Echo watched him leave. Then she straightened her body and took a deep breath of air. Looking up, her eyes somewhere in the rafters of the basement, she made the Sign of the Cross, as Catholics do; her lips moved in some brief and silent prayer. Then, quickly, she returned the cigarette to her mouth, and went to work on the puzzle. Berry-berry came back carrying one glass and a bottle nearly half full of bourbon. He poured some of it into the glass, and set the glass on the table. Echo took a sip from it.

“Whee!” she said. “Straight!”

“You want water?”

“This is fine, thanks. Now listen, if you want to talk, and this puzzle makes you nervous—just say so.”

“Go ahead if you want to, I don’t care. I’m not that touchy. God, I hope I’m not that touchy.”

“I want to thank you for tonight, lover. Best time I ever had.”

“You shouldn’t call me lover, not around here.”

“I’m sorry. —Boy, I’d like to’ve danced my heels off. Usually a man wants to quit after two or three.”

“Has that been your experience?”

“Mm-hmm. But I could go on all night.”

“Could you?”

“Yes. I could. —Now, Berry-berry, the reason I came down here was so you all could sleep. And I think you need it. So go on on up, for heaven sake.”

Berry-berry was silent. Still standing, he leaned with both elbows on the table. After a long moment, he said, “Echo. Why did you tell me you were a virgin?”