When I heard the door close-and made sure Lisa was on the far side of it-I told Geraldine about Catherine and Benji.

“I know you and Calvin were lovers all those years ago. It was you he meant when he called for Deenie last week, wasn’t it?”

Her fingers clenched on the arms of her chair, but she nodded. “How did you know? Was it the key to Larchmont that he had kept?”

“That, and some other things. Armand Pelletier left an unfinished manuscript among his papers that pretty well spelled it out.”

“Ah, Armand. I wondered if he would come back to haunt me. He was so passionate about workers’ rights, and for a time I reflected that passionbecause I was passionate and needed some object for my ardor. He was bitter when I left him for Calvin; he accused me of being too fastidious, of needing the fleshpots of Egypt. I told him clean sheets would suffice. But it had more to do with-Calvin was a generous lover, and Armand … took more than he gave. His passions ultimately were for himself alone. With Calvin, too, it was only a way of getting what he himself desired, but I didn’t see that until much later.”

“There was never a question that you would leave your husband?” Involuntarily, I let myself be sidetracked.

“I thought-I had the notion that if I divorced MacKenzie, Calvin and I might marry. But however much Mother hated MacKenzie, she couldn’t stand the scandal a divorce would cause, and before I’d nerved myself to stand up to her-Calvin had married Renee.” She twisted the great diamond on her right hand. “I had gone to Washington when he was called

before the committee. I was in the hearing room. I was one of the spectators. I had gone with the idea that I would surprise him. I loved him; I thought he loved me and that if I declared myself it would be a help to his spirit during those difficult days.”

“And he turned you down?”

She turned her head so I couldn’t see her face. “I never made the offer. He left the room surrounded by lawyers and reporters. I looked for him in his club at the end of the day and they told me where he was dining. When I got to the restaurant, I saw him sitting with Renee-as he had often sat with me-so close the clothes themselves might melt from our bodies. I walked away, walked blindly, walked through the night, thinking only that I must never let anyone know how humiliated I had been. I walked for hours, until I ended up weary in some district I didn’t know. I went into a bar, thinking I would have a brandy and get them to call me a cab.”

She stopped, her fingers still working on her ring. “And saw my husband. With Olin Taverner. As close as Renee had been to Calvin. It was that kind of bar. MacKenzie looked up and recognized me.”