The bell worked, or else it was a coincidence: not five minutes later a crowd of young people burst into the den from the backyard, looking flushed and windblown, wearing shorts and linen shirts and light dresses, all of them talking at once: “God help us!” “But I was turned the other way!” “It’s a wonder Dottie isn’t blind!” “But I was turned the other way!” “Hello, hello!” Clara made a flurry of introductions. There were seven or eight of them in all, and their names—Dottie and James, Alma and Roland and Max, Karen, and Betsy—were lost to Henry the moment he heard them, except for Scott, Effie’s old crush, who was handsome like his sister, and whose unbuttoned shirt showed off a well-tended chest and stomach. “You don’t say!” he said when Clara told him who Effie was, but Henry could tell he didn’t remember. Even so, he wrapped her in a hug and pressed her cheek to his bare chest, and Henry felt a prick of jealousy. Who were these people? They were weirdly, effusively nice: “Fabulous to meet you!” “Georgia, you say?” “Congratulations!” “Hank, you’re the luckiest man in the world.” This last came from a shirtless man with the stocky build of a boxer. When Henry said, “I know, believe me,” the man laughed and clapped him so hard on the back that Henry spilled part of his drink out onto the rug.

“I’m sorry,” Henry said, meeting Clara’s eyes. “I’ll clean it up.”

“Don’t even think of it,” Clara said. She came over and laid her hand on the boxer’s bicep. “My darling, you don’t know your own strength.”

“Sorry, Hank,” the man said, and struck him again, more gently, on the shoulder. Clara’s hand lingered at his back. Was this possibly Richard? He seemed too young for her. He was handsome, but shorter than Clara by several inches.

The crowd swarmed the bar. Ice rang in their glasses. One empty gin bottle was discarded with a crash, another one opened. Henry and Effie stayed close together, but when the group returned with their drinks they brought a whirlwind of merry chatter that radiated outward and broke them apart. They all seemed to know one another intimately, but it could have been an illusion; they made you feel like you were in on the conversation, even if you had no idea what they were talking about, and they were given to strange gestures of confidentiality—leaning in close, clutching your forearm, only to disclose some little trifle: “I hear there may be bourbon tarts on the dessert menu!” Henry smiled and nodded; a few feet away, Effie was doing the same. The talk was hard to follow, names and places and references that eluded him but that sent sparks through his imagination: Gabby and Sophie and Anders; Marblehead, the Berkshires, Palermo; the Fourth of July party with the Great Dane; Lorenzo’s hyacinths; the place setting that caught fire. Clara weaved among them all, holding a gin bottle in one hand and the tonic in the other, their host but—as Henry imagined—more than that: their sorceress, the one who was setting them spinning.