Judith looked up, and saw a plump, bald man with the face of a child, who sat with his knees apart, his plump hands resting on his thighs, and his pants cuffs raised to show red-and-blue argyle socks. She saw a woman with blue-gray hair who sat stiffly upright in her armchair, raising her thin arm to pat gently at her hair while her ivory bracelet slipped slowly from her wrist to her forearm. In an armchair a girl of twenty in tight faded jeans and a burnt-orange sweater sat hugging her raised knees and staring over the tops of them as, flexing and unflexing her bare toes, she listened intensely to a young man with a short blond beard, black-rimmed eyeglasses, and bright blue eyes. Judith felt that she wanted to tell these people something important, something about how strange it was to be sitting in chairs in a lounge in the middle of the hills, how everything was startling and utterly unknown, how each of them was as wondrous as a giraffe or a rhinoceros, but her thoughts grew confused, the expansive, mysterious feeling passed away, and she saw before her a roomful of dull people, sitting around with nothing to do.

A tiredness came over her, and leaning back for a moment she closed her heavy-lidded eyes. The sun and the hiking had tired her; it had been a long day. It was already past nine. Tomorrow’s weather was supposed to be sunny and warm, with highs in the mid-seventies, possibly clouding over in the afternoon. She wanted to be up early: breakfast at six, or say six-thirty at the latest, and out in the sun by seven. She would set her alarm for five-thirty; she could be in bed by half-past nine.

When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see that several of the lamps were out. A number of chairs and couches were empty. She glanced at her watch: it was nearly ten. She must have drifted off. Across the room, the elderly couple was no longer there. She wanted to say good night to them, but they must have gone up to their room while her eyes were closed. She wished they would come back so that she could say good night to them.

Wearily Judith pushed herself to her feet. She would sleep well tonight.

In her room Judith changed quickly into her nightgown and set her alarm for twenty of six. In bed she picked up the book on Victorian architecture, but she could scarcely keep her eyes open. Her body was deliciously tired; there was no need to read herself to sleep. Turning out the lamp beside the bed, she closed her eyes and felt herself falling down, down, toward deepest sleep.