“ ‘No, my Ophelia Immortal,’ I said, ‘and that’s the name under which I’ll write to you from Europe, and the name under which I’ll E-mail you on the computer, my Ophelia Immortal. I think it is the most splendid name I ever heard.’

“I told her how that afternoon I’d put the film on the TV just to watch that scene of Ophelia underwater. ‘I love you that you love it,’ I said, ‘but you’ll be Ophelia Immortal because you’ll never drown, you know that, don’t you? We have to get that straight, don’t we? That you’re Ophelia in suspended animation, one most “capable of her own distress” and of her ecstasy, and born up forever on “her melodious lay.” ’

“She laughed and kissed me warmly. ‘You really do know the words, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Oh, I love you for it. And E-mails, why didn’t I think of it? Of course, we’ll E-mail each other from Europe, and write also. We have to print out our letters. Our correspondence will be as famous as that of HéloÏse and Abelard.’

“ ‘Absolutely,’ I said with a little shudder. ‘But nothing so long and chaste, my beloved; I’ll be home and you’ll be cured and we’ll soon be in each other’s arms.’ I laughed outright. ‘By the way, you do know that for his love of HéloÏse, Abelard was castrated, don’t you? We don’t want anything so dreadful to happen to me.’

“ ‘It’s a metaphor for your restraint, Quinn, and that we can’t merge into the same person as Ophelia would have done with Hamlet if only his father hadn’t been killed.’

“I kissed her longingly and lovingly. ’ ”Oh, brave new world that hath such creatures in it,” ’ I quoted. ‘What other fifteen-year-old in the world would know such things?’

“ ‘You ought to talk to me about the stock market,’ she returned, her green eyes firing beautifully. ‘It’s perfectly egregious that Mayfair and Mayfair insists on managing my billions. I know more about stocks and bonds than anybody in the firm.’

“Stirling had just come to join the table. I realized I hadn’t said hello to the graceful Rowan and the stalwart Michael. I corrected all that, glorying in the warmth with which we all greeted each other, and I explained to Stirling hastily that the family had checked out of Blackwood Manor, that if Petronia wanted to find us she’d have to come looking at the Windsor Court Hotel.

“ ‘And the little gentleman with the black hair over there, that’s Tommy?’

“ ‘Precisely. Soon to become Tommy Blackwood. We’re leaving for Europe as soon as we get his passport. I’ll have his name changed at the passport office if I can get away with it. We’ll see what a little persuasion does.’