Evie had slanting eyes, and a flushed, pretty face. She was wearing a shiny brown dress, and her hair bubbled down her back in fair, glossy curls. She had an impulsive way of embracing people, of holding them by the hand or the elbow, as though she must atone for any reticence on their part with an extra measure of her own exuberance—or as though they would attempt to escape if not taken into custody.

“Minna, what a beautiful dress. How thin you are. Theodore, you never look a day older, not a single day. I expect,” she said to Minna, “that he is really very gray—with fair people it doesn’t show. He’ll get old quite suddenly and look like Somerset Maugham.” She gave Minna a sympathetic, curious look from her tilted eyes. (Minna could imagine her saying later: “I never will understand why that keeps going, not if I live to be a hundred.”) “Here’s Phil.”

Evie’s husband came out of the living room, a silver jug in one hand and an ice bucket in the other.

“You look like an allegorical figure,” Minna told him.

Phil smiled. He went through life with that sedate, modest smile. He was a corporation lawyer, and he and Evie had been very happy together for fifteen years. Long ago, however, at his own expense and to everyone’s surprise he had published a small book of love poems that carried no assurance of being addressed to her. “What would you like to drink?” Phil asked. “Minna, come into the kitchen and help me with the ice. Otherwise I’ll never get a chance to talk to you.”

Evie was leading Theodore away. Minna looked apprehensively at his straight back as it receded toward a group of people in the living room. He will enjoy himself, she thought, and then reproach me for letting him come.

In the kitchen, Phil’s eleven-year-old son was emptying ashtrays into a garbage pail.

“Hello, Ronnie,” Minna said. She turned on the cold tap for Phil.

“Oh hullo,” Ronnie said, intent on his work. “Alison’s got the virus.” Alison was his sister.

“But not badly,” said Phil. “Thank you, Minna, I think that’s about enough.”

“I got her a card,” Ronnie said.

“How nice,” said Minna, breaking up a tray of ice.

“It says ‘Get Well Quick.’”

“That sounds a trifle peremptory.”

“I expect the sentiment counts for something,” Phil observed from the sink.

“Taste is more important than sentiment,” Minna decided, without reflection.

“Yes, I suppose I agree with that.”

She smiled. “The combination, on the other hand, is irresistible.”

“You’re beginning to talk like Theodore. Ronnie, you could be handing round the peanuts.”

“There aren’t any peanuts.”