That was the first meeting, if silence and avoidance could in any sense be called a meeting. For Judith it seemed to insist on remaining no less than that. The melancholy woman finished half her slice of pecan pie, lit up a cigarette, and left in a cloud of smoke, without having ventured a syllable. But even the hoped-for silence managed to annoy Judith: it seemed too pointedly a reproach. It was as if it had been up to Judith, who at thirty-six supposed she was the “older woman,” to break the silence and launch them into gloomy intimacy. She, however, was planning to enjoy herself for a change. There was a certain kind of exasperating woman who never recovered from the world of the college dormitory, and spent the rest of her life longing for tragic confidences and cozy confessions in an atmosphere of leathery lounges, heaped ashtrays, and crumpled Almond Joy wrappers crackling faintly while the gray of early dawn showed through the many-paned high windows. The dark woman would probably go searching unhappily for that dormitory until doomsday. She ought to get on with it. But Judith’s good spirits quickly returned. After dinner she made her way back to the lobby, which led to the front lounge, and when she stepped from the side door into the darkness of the open veranda, she felt something expand within her. She walked to the handrail in front, overlooking the lamplit lake. On three sides the long veranda was built on piles over the water. A wicker chair creaked. Footsteps crunched in the graveled paths beside the lake. In the dark, shining water the reflections of windows broke into ripples of yellow as three ducks, forming a triangle, floated by. On the dry side of the veranda a flight of steps led to a path. Judith crossed the path by the side of the lake and walked partway up the dark hill on the other side. She looked across at the great porch and the tiers of yellow windows, and later, in an armchair in the lamplit lounge, when she sat with The Machining of Plastics beside her and the folded Times before her and paused over a five-letter word meaning “crest of a mountain,” she thought of the dark hill over the lake. The fourth letter was “t.” She looked up, as if hoping to find the missing letters in the air before her, and saw the melancholy woman passing slowly across the room. Her dark green sweater seemed to emphasize her slumped shoulders, her long black skirt hung as if despondently about her, and with the sound of a sigh she exhaled a long stream of swirling smoke while she looked around as if searching for someone who had failed to keep an appointment.