She gave him a single piercing glance and turned to walk briskly up the hill beside him, scolding him as they went. “You forget that I’m an old woman, Edward. I get agitated when I’m kept waiting.”

“I’m sorry, Grace, but you’re always early, you know.”

“What if I am?” Relief after anxiety took the form of irritation. She stopped a moment to lean on her umbrella and catch her breath. “You should wear a coat, Edward—you’ll catch cold,” she said crossly. But it was not the lack of a coat, it was something in the way he walked, his shoulders hunched over, that made him look vulnerable to her, as if he were holding himself down, holding down some acute tension by sheer force of will.

He did not answer, did not seem to have heard her remark, and they took the steepest part of the hill in silence, then turned down Walnut Street, a little apart, for Grace had drawn away in order to be able to see his face. He’s troubled, she thought, and I can’t ask him about it. Was it the book? Was he again in one of those periods when he wrote each morning and then threw the morning’s work in the wastebasket? Was it something at Harvard? Whatever it was, it could not be deciphered in his face. As they emerged into the open spaces, high up at the top of the Common, she drew a deep breath and stood for a moment surveying the scene. Somehow the vista of trees, the colonies of pigeons, the bums feeding the pigeons from crumby bags, the frog pond just below, so familiar and safe, cheered her.

“I feel like a child dragging his feet to a horrid school. What has happened to us? I used to enjoy the meetings …” she said, as if aware for the first time what a change had come upon everything lately. “Pay attention, Edward!”

“I’m sorry.” He shoved his hands down into his pockets, forcing a thought down there out of sight, or so it seemed. “What was it, Grace? What did you say?” He turned to her and smiled, a young smile, his deep-set blue eyes regarding her with humorous concern.

“I said that I hated these meetings and I wonder why. What’s happened to us, Edward?” and this time there was a plaintive note in her voice.

“Nothing’s happened to us, nothing at all. We’re just what we always were, that’s what’s the trouble.” Movement was clearly necessary to him now and he increased their pace.

“The sense of the meeting has changed, you mean? Don’t walk so fast, Edward. I’m an old woman.”

At this, he took her arm and slowed down. “It’s a liberal organization, Grace, after all.”

“It used to be a fighting organization.”