After dinner, they went back to the fire. The living room was furnished, as rooms in summer houses often are, with the mistakes and discards of a town apartment. Unabashed, these had assumed a certain style of their own. The rug was a deep cocoa color, worn pale and thin near the door and by the sofa. The chairs, with one or two defections, tended toward dark green. There was a mosaic coffee table, made by a relative, and two ashtrays that had seemed a good idea one hot afternoon in Cuernavaca. The same rash expedition to Mexico was responsible for a black and brown painting in which a man and woman stared at each other with unmistakable resentment.

When the telephone rang, Clem put his coffee cup and saucer down on the uneven mosaic, where they rocked a little, and went into the hall. They heard him speaking loudly, as people do on a long-distance call even when the connection is good.

“He doesn’t sound alarmed,” said Nettie.

Sarah said: “One never knows. With these things.”

Clem’s voice went on, with long pauses. Instinctively they watched the doorway, but it was Marion, not Clem, who first appeared there, startling in a coat and hat. She gave a polite but meaning glance at Nettie, who with a little gasp of recollection sprang up from her chair and left the room.

In the drawer of the hall table there was an envelope that May had marked “Marion,” and this Nettie now passed on stealthily. “I hope it’s right,” she said, having no reason to doubt it.

Marion, infinitely more assured than Nettie, put the envelope in an immense black handbag. “I’ll be over tomorrow,” she said. “And I hope Matt’s all right.”

“Yes. Thank you. Good night,” said Nettie. She closed the front door. Clem, sitting on the stairs with the telephone receiver in his hand, was still talking, but with a terminal inflection. As she passed him, he reached out and touched her dress. Matt must be better, she thought.

When she came back into the living room, Vernon was leaning forward as if he had been speaking earnestly. Sarah, Nettie noted, looked confused. Nettie did not sit down, but started to assemble the empty cups on a tray.

“Let me help,” Sarah said, taking up the coffeepot.

“Don’t bother, really. I’ll just leave them in the kitchen.” Nettie was halfway to the door.

“Matt is better,” said Clem, appearing in the doorway. “It’s a throat infection, apparently.”

“I knew it,” Sarah said.

“His temperature is down.”

“I’m so glad.” The coffeepot waggled slightly. “Perhaps I should have spoken to May. What is she planning to do?”

“She’s going to call me in the morning. It depends how he is—she may stay there a day or two.”