A gentle hand took hold of his elbow.

—Evelyn, he gasped.

—Jesus, Prentice. You’re white as ghost. Are you all right?

—Ohhh, he moaned from the bottom of his soul; and then began to sob.

She led him to a chaise. She sat at his side and took his hands in her own to still them from trembling.

—What is it, Prentice? What’s happened?

—Evelyn. He was almost upon me.

—Who?

—Like a minion of the devil, he’s haunted me. Hunted me. Waiting for the perfect moment to bring me to my end.

—Who, Prentice?

—A shadow.

—What shadow?

Silence fell around them. A silence as unvaultable as time. The silence from which all things spring, all things good and evil. With a great effort, Prentice raised his gaze and looked her in the eyes.

—The shadow of my former self.

It was a pitiful admission. A comic one. It had been written in the pages of Prentice’s personal history to elicit guffaws. But young Evelyn, so prone to beautiful laughter, remained sober. Sympathetic. Unflinching.

—In 1936, Prentice confessed, on a crowded avenue he shoved me in front of a tram. And last New Year’s Eve, he nearly succeeded in throwing me from my own balcony to the flagstones below. That is why I moved to the first floor.

—But why, Prentice?

Casting his gaze downward again, he saw that she was still holding his hands. And he could feel how her innermost temperature was transferring itself through his skin and coursing through his veins, bringing warmth to his core in the manner of a potent drink. And in this state of intoxication, the words spilled forth: how it all began, even as a boy at his grandmother’s; lemon squares, with a shortbread crust and a bright yellow curd; the bacon sandwiches, so fatty and savory and divine; and later, the ingenuity of the profiterole!

Ah, the very shame of it.

He told her too, how he had learned to hold it in check during all those promising years—first, as a lineless lord-officer-soldier-attendant; then, as an understudy in the wings mouthing monologues word-for-word; and at last, as the leading man with a rapier in his left hand and a pistol in his right. But with every step toward success, he had advanced as well toward a darker humor. He became surly. Impatient. Abrupt.