He was looking about for one of the Cunninghams in order to say good-bye.

Wait, Lilian said. I’ll come out with you.

9 • The beautiful hour

9 • The beautiful hour

WHEN THEY stepped out of the Cunninghams’ doorway into a small courtyard their faces were grazed by the feathery touch of snowflakes. The street was covered with a white dusting, and the other guests exclaimed how lovely it looked.

Walter Vail proposed a walk. It was a still night and the black air streamed with drifting down.

They set out toward the Common where the lights were most bright and strolled through the luminous air along the paths marked with looping chains. Their arms brushed each other and they stayed close and it continued to happen. When they crossed the street back toward the Hill, Walter Vail took her arm, and on the other side — there were hardly any cars on the roads — he kept hold of it. He told her about his time in Prides Crossing. They had gone to a dinner — she should have seen — clam chowder then chicken, cauliflower and potatoes — everything white! — even dessert, something called Floating Island — and Lilian was grateful for his saying, You wouldn’t have believed it, thinking her like him, since she would have found nothing at all unusual in such a meal.

They navigated a steep hill. His arm went around her, palm scooping her elbow, holding tight.

She had never been gripped by a boy the way Walter Vail was gripping her. He steered her along the sidewalks, a winter night where no one saw, and he couldn’t have done it if she hadn’t let him, but she did. She felt like someone else. I feel it because of him, she thought. The person he sees is quite different from the one I feel myself to be — it’s a better person Walter Vail sees. She preferred that person.

She felt like someone she might have read about in a book or seen in a play, only she wasn’t pretending or acting out a part — she had the feeling to go with it, a feeling everywhere in her, poured into her body like liquid brass into a mold. It pooled through her, taking her over. She felt lifted a few inches from the ground, arms weightless, legs strong, her hips aware of the loose slip against them, the weight of her dress on the slip, and on top of it all her bulky coat. They were on Pinckney Street and the lanterns picked out snow falling, the bricks already covered with a flour dusting and here and there a few footprints showing. They walked up tilted sidewalks and followed curving streets.