Selma, who was forty-five years old and spoiled by her pupils even as she spoiled them, looked across the dining table at the troubled, plain, beautiful Doreen, half her age, and wanted to reach and touch her and say, “Whatever it is that makes you tremble and frown, it will end. I understand.”

Sarah and Bruce talked mainly to each other at one end of the table, and Leon and Edna talked mainly to each other at the other. In between there were Doreen and James, Nell and Penelope and Selma, Rachel and Adam.

They talked. They talked.

Sarah had a moment in which, although her face kept its mild look, she thought: “I don’t know anybody.” She remembered Roman far away and almost wept from missing him.

After the big noon dinner, lying down was suggested, and those who wanted to rest quietly alone drifted up the stairs, while others wandered out to the front porch to sit idly, now and then to talk with animation for a few minutes and then lapse abruptly into silence again.

Adam and Rachel went into the grounds in front of the porch, and after looking back at the house and seeming to study it a few moments without speaking, they proceeded to walk slowly to and fro. Only James of the group on the porch watched them as they went off toward the orchard. Although not hungry, they could not resist the bright reds and yellows of late-ripening plums on one tree. Adam picked a few, and they rubbed them to a shine between their hands and ate them.

On the porch Bruce and Leon had gone to sleep in their chairs. Edna, Nell, Penelope, and Selma were upstairs resting. Now Sarah rose to go to her room. She was followed by Doreen who had watched James as his eyes followed the lovers strolling away into the orchard. She touched his arm without speaking as she passed him and went into the house behind Sarah. James’s were the only eyes to see the young lovers as they circled the house without coming near it and went off toward the back fields.

Within half an hour they reached the glade, not hurrying, content to be anywhere as long as they were together, but the love in both urging them to the place they always felt most private. Talking progressed to talking and touching, and then kissing quickly, and then kissing slowly. When Adam endeavored to pull back, it was too late; Rachel would not have it so.