“I’d like about a thimbleful of sherry in my glass,” she commanded. “Could you rough something out this weekend, talk it over once more before you go back?”

“Good heavens, no,” John said crossly. “In all that hullabaloo up at the house?—Comfort playing records, Christy practicing the flute, Robin and Cathy arguing?”

“Yes,” Jane sighed, “I suppose it’s too much to ask. But, John, I’m getting to be a very old lady. I won’t last forever.”

“You have to,” John said, half serious, half laughing. “I can’t possibly live without you.”

But Jane did not rise to this. She felt rather exhausted. For a moment her head nodded. She had closed her eyes. Perhaps she slept for a few seconds, and John observed her with some anxiety.

Meanwhile Hannah, who had been watching the clock, came to the door and made signals. It was clearly time to go, and John got up, prepared to tiptoe out. But they had reckoned without Jane, who now opened her eyes and said, quite sharply, “Hannah, you are not to look at the clock. I need to talk with John. I’ll rest all afternoon.”

“And I’m the one who’ll pick up the pieces,” Hannah said, shaking her head.

“I won’t stay long. I promise,” John told her, as she closed the door with a bang, rather like a jack-in-the-box.

“Thump, bang!” Jane sighed. “She’s a dragon. I pretend that she is a real dragon. It’s the only way to stand it.”

“But she does take good care of you?”

“Of the old baby I have become, yes; of the real person I am, well …” She smiled. “We’ll not talk of that. Old age is a great trial, John. One has to be so damned good!”

They exchanged a look full of amusement and tenderness. And John sat down again, took one of the small, dry hands, and held it hard in his.

“Tell me now about yourself, John. I’ve badgered you with town history—I just had to get it off my mind—but of course it’s you I care about, dear.” She waited. “I know you’ve had a hard time lately.”

He let her hand go and lit a cigarette.

“It’s so good here.” Then he gave a deep sigh. “If you really want to know, Jane, I wake up every morning about five and wonder how I can get through the day.”

“I suspect that more people than we can imagine do the same thing. What do you do then? I say poems to myself. Sometimes I play a game of solitaire.”