“Don’t we all? On the way back from Boston I stopped to buy plants. It seemed as if I just had to have something—something alive around. Maybe we should get a cat. Cornelius would like that. He spends a great deal of time dozing.”

“So do I, if you must know, and a cat’s a fine personage because a cat purrs while one dozes. I can recommend the experience without reservation.”

As Eben helped Christina with her coat, he went on. “You don’t see me as I really am—an old wreck—because when you come, life flows in. I wake up!” he said with a grin.

She watched him in the car mirror as she drove off, standing there, following her with his intent gaze. And only when he was out of sight, did she allow the past to overwhelm her for a moment. Strange boy he had been—more intense, more sure of what he wanted than anyone she had ever met. For a brief, dangerous summer that intensity had nearly driven her mad with longing, although she was engaged to Cornelius at the time. Was it fear that had held her back, or, as Eben would say, the Genteel Tradition? But as she turned into the drive, feeling unaccountably anxious, she had no regrets. Good marriages are not made out of such wildfire. Only it was strange indeed to find it still had such power. Perhaps it was untrue that the old live less intensely. She felt the hour she had just spent with the fierce old hawk burning in her like some fuel.

CHRISTINA’S JOURNAL—December 28