The wall overlooking them suddenly broke open at a square of light, shutters clattering back against stone, and Harold’s mother leaned from the window. Framed in ivy tendrils, she presented, in metal curlers and a dark dressing gown, an altered version of that type of post card in which ringleted maidens used to lean toward one over window sills. The boy stared up at her blankly, his eyes emptied of all impression. Without looking at the others, she reminded him that he had traveled all day and that it was almost one o’clock. The wall was abruptly resealed.

Harold continued to look up for a moment, and it could be seen rather than heard that he muttered: “I’m sorry.” He began to put his papers together, at first slowly, and then quickly and nervously, picking up pages that fluttered to the ground. His authority relinquished without a struggle, he rose from the table holding the bundle insecurely against him. “Good night … thanks awfully … good night,” he said, and disappeared into the house with his ungainly steps.

Presently they heard a sound like a splash, a sound that could only be his papers falling across the tiled floor of the living room. They gave him time to gather them up, convinced that alone there in the half darkness he was saying: “I’m sorry.”

THE PICNIC

It was like Nettie, Clem thought, to wear a dress like that to a picnic and to spill something on it. His wife, May, was wearing shorts and a plaid shirt, and here was Nettie in a dress that showed her white arms and shoulders—and, as she bent over the wine stain, her bosom; a dress with a green design of grapes and vine leaves. He could tell, too, that she had been to the hairdresser yesterday, or even this morning before setting out to visit them. She hadn’t changed at all. Unrealistic, that was the word for Nettie.… But the word, suggesting laughter and extravagance, unexpectedly gave him pleasure. Feeling as though Nettie herself had cheated him of his judgment, he turned away from her and glanced down the hillside to where May was playing catch with Ivor, their youngest boy.