“Thanks.”

She hurried gaily into the bathroom. Clinton’s head had scarcely touched the pillow when Shirley’s face appeared again at the bathroom door. “Listen, if you get so lonesome you can’t stand it, we can have a conversation right while I’m havin’ m’bath. Just pull that chair over and set with your back to me, is all you have to do.”

“Thanks.”

“And we can talk about just any old thing till you feel better. Or I could give up m’bath altogether. ‘Cause I’m clean as a pin. I just need refreshment. And I want to try out m’new cake o’ soap. Are you as crazy about soap as I am?”

Clinton could still hear her voice, but it seemed to come from a great distance. He had fallen asleep. Shirley moved quickly to his side and stood there for a long time just looking at his face. And then she touched his forehead lightly with her lips.

Clinton felt the coolness of it; and he heard, as in a dream, the softness of her voice: “You’re only asleep. Aren’t you, Willy?”

Then Shirley crept silently into the bathroom. The panda named Herskelwitz sat on the toilet while she took her bath.

Later, when Clinton awakened, the character of the room had changed. Shimmering blades of daylight, very thin, but sharp as swords, shone through cracks in the shutters and were softened only slightly by the curtains that now hung motionless in front of them. The lamps had been put out. Clinton knew it was daytime, but it seemed more like night than night itself. Without moving his head, he could see Shirley. But at first he could not believe what he saw:

She was seated on the floor, just inside the closet, smoking a corncob pipe. She wore lavender pajamas and the lavender panda sat on her bare knee. At first, when he looked at her, her body was so utterly without motion, not even breath, that he feared she was in some kind of mysterious trance. But after a long moment, she exhaled, and emitted a puff of smoke. Then she placed the pipe in her mouth again, and with a series of brief and frenzied pulls at its stem, her lungs once again filled with the smoke. She seemed to try to hold this smoke inside of her as long as possible.

The girl, unaware of Clinton, was so intent on her pipe that he felt as if he were an interloper watching through the keyhole as she took part in some curious and private ceremony. Then, to remind her of his presence, he turned over on the bed and stretched his limbs, making as much noise as might seem natural. Without looking at her, he sat forward and put his feet on the floor.

“Hello, Willy,” she said.

“I guess I fell asleep. I’m awful sorry.”

“You was tired. What’s wrong with that?”

“But I shouldn’t be takin’ up your bed. Where’d you sleep?”

“I didn’t. I seldom sleep too much,” she said, “except on Sundays.”