The old lady, all alone, was sitting on the lawn in a cane-bottomed chair. She was reading and did not hear my footsteps on the driveway. I was struck by the singular composition of the picture before my eyes: the spare black figure central in the expanse of shining grass and behind her the white house with its pedimented windows flanked by green shutters and its paneled door which was slightly ajar; burnishing the whole scene, giving to it that final fillip which distinguishes art from nature, was the clear light of early summer as skillfully executed as Vermeer’s sunshine. She looked up with a smile as I approached.

“I hope you have enjoyed Hawthorne’s grave better than I have done the gardens. I have no horticultural principles, yet had the great misfortune of being taken in tow by Mrs. Bigelow who feels very strongly about tulipes noires. I could not comfort her at Charity Brewster’s, where she was confronted by several specimens.”

I laughed and asked if Hopestill had accompanied her and she replied, “No. I don’t know where she is. There isn’t a sign of life about the place. Not even her animal is here.”

Turning her eyes once again to her book, she indicated that she had spent enough time on me and I left her, making my way round the house to the studio. I helped myself generously to whiskey from the bar and put a Brahms piano concerto on the automatic phonograph. There was a sweet flamboyance to the music; it was like a plump and tender hug into which I burrowed luxuriously. Whiskey and music, I reflected, especially when taken together, made time fly incredibly fast. When the long concerto was finished, it was growing dark. A little wind had come up, threatening a storm. The air itself, more than the dark clouds, presaged the arrival of the thunder and the rain. I went back to the house to see if Hopestill had returned. Miss Pride had gone inside and the lawn was bare again save for the deepening shadows of the apple trees along the drive. There was a note for me thrust into the knocker which read: “Undone by the gardens I have gone upstairs to rest. When our tardy hostess arrives, tell her that since we have been given no tea, we shall expect dinner. Lucy Pride.”

An hour later, just after the storm broke, Hopestill, wild-eyed, tousled, burst into the studio. She did not take off her wet raincoat but sprawled in a vermilion chair and the legs she stretched out before her were clad in jodhpurs, a fact that did not strike me as odd probably because her whiskey had rendered me impervious to surprise. Nor was I taken aback when she asked for the decanter of whiskey and took three large drinks neat and with a masculine rapidity.

“Do you believe in supernatural things?” she said quickly in a shrill voice and leaned forward with an eager look in her harried face.