Lilian, however, had heard the explanation from her mother. It was from living with those cousins in Dover and not having them look after her which made Aunt Tizzy wild.

Tizzy Eliot’s face hardened. Just one of those mysteries, I guess.

Mr. Eliot pushed back his chair with a short movement and placed his folded napkin square to his plate. Life is one grand mystery, he said.

Though Lilian had not seen him behave as if it were the least mysterious at all.

13 • Lime Street

13 • Lime Street

LIME STREET had always been a dreary narrow little street to Lilian, but as she turned the corner now in the brittle night it took on an august and dazzling cast. Walter Vail was there.

She felt that here was a new life, teeming with possibility, something all her own. She smiled the way people do alone on a street, unable to contain their joy. She arrived at the number he’d told her and lifted the knocker. He opened the door, holding a finger to his lips, and stepped back to let her in. His white shirt was luminous in the gloom.

Inside was quiet. His parents had spent the evening packing and were in bed. They had an early departure in the morning. Had they been Bostonian parents they’d have been downstairs to greet their son’s guest, but being from New York, Lilian supposed, they had other priorities. Quite right, she thought. The day after Christmas Walter Vail was sailing. The fact of his going was always present, a fat stubborn thing in the corner, with arms folded, waiting.

The hallway had a spicy smell, Christmas cards were piled loosely on the hall table. Walter Vail led her without looking back up one flight of stairs, up the red and blue rug, then onto the rugs in the hall with wooden floor on either side. The house was dark and silent. They did not speak.

He led her into the shadowy parlor. Light from a sconce in the hallway threw a widening band of yellow over the floor. They stood near a window seat. Bells jingled on a carriage passing beneath them.

I missed you, he said. She saw his nervousness, but saw, too, that it was shallow. He put one arm around her, and she closed her eyes, leaning forward, and felt his lips on her temple. She stood this way for some time with a blissful expression. Eventually he pulled her to his chest, pressing her cheek against the button of his pocket. For a moment it occurred to her how free she was being. She hardly knew this man. But the war had changed things, and normal time was not the same. Leaning against him she felt nothing could disturb her happiness, but then she thought of the war and saw the round thing implacable in the corner and remembered.

How was dinner? she whispered.

Fine.

Did you … ?