“No one can help,” he said moving away from her, so her hand fell to her side, and it seemed a rejection. “That’s just the trouble.” He was not looking at her, nor did he see the tears which had started to her eyes. “It’s not your failure, it’s mine, Grace.”

“Friends should be able to help each other.” She drank the shadows all around them like a bitter draught. All the light had gone up into the sky. They were in darkness. “But I’m too old. Don’t say anything,” she said harshly. “It’s the truth.” She walked ahead of him now, very straight, up over the hill where they looked down on the large round pond, dominated by the circle of white columns which commemorated Mary Baker Eddy. “All those religions,” she said with contempt. “They’re no help either.”

“Darling Grace”—Edward came up to stand beside her—“I haven’t done much to cheer you up, have I?”

“That’s all right,” she flashed back at him. “I’m a tough old bird.” She would not yield any further to destructive emotion. And her eyes were eagle-bright now, as she took out the binoculars and hid behind them.

“Anything to see?”

“I thought there was a duck in the reeds,” she said shortly. “I find ducks comforting.”

“I never felt closer to anyone except my mother,” Edward said, “than I do to you.”

Had she heard? She turned and went quickly down the hill toward the broad road which would lead them out again. And he followed, his head bent, his hands in his pockets, as perhaps he had walked behind his mother when he was a child, dawdling a little, waiting for her to notice his absence.

“Hurry up, Edward,” Grace called impatiently. “It’s high time for tea.”

Edward sat with Horace on his lap stroking him absent-mindedly and looking at the cold hearth. It was really too warm for a fire, yet the absence of it made the room feel somber.

“I wonder if I ought to get new curtains.” Grace looked at the heavy green velvet curtains, faded to the color of olives.

“No, no,” he said quickly, “don’t think of changing anything.” His eyes wandered to the Sargent portrait of Grace with her mother, her mother sitting in the very chair where she sat now, and the little girl with flaming red hair and a narrow intense face standing beside her. “It’s a beautiful Sargent, you know, one of the best.” She could see his interest flicker for a moment, like a fire which might light and might not. But at least she thought, he is really looking at something and taking pleasure in it.

“I’m leaving it to the Fogg,” she announced.

“It’s so perfect against the gold walls, so perfect in this room, I can’t imagine it anywhere else.”