“Do.” She moved her legs an inch; her square little hands drew at the hem of her skirt and folded it more tightly beneath her. You could see the sleek varnish of her right thigh and the upper calf of her right leg, swelling tightly under the smooth black silk. She was not wearing the hoops which had supported her gown that morning. “You must excuse my appearance,” she said. “I was—being comfortable.”

He said, “I don’t know the trivial politenesses any more. There’s little ceremony on the prairies. People have to work too hard.” He sat down, not too near to her. “I wasn’t expecting to see anyone, either. My coat is under some bushes near the cemetery.”

“Is—everything over?”

“Yes. He’s been put away.” He could feel the afternoon sun squatting in yellow brittleness around him. “You should be in the shade, Mrs. Fanning.”

“No.” Her eyes closed and she tossed her head with a quick, nervous thrill. Her hands went up to pat the iridescent mound of loose hair. He thought, “You are a lady, but now you look like a girl in Mother Merry’s house at Dubuque.” Then her eyes were open again, hard and green, and again she smiled. “There’s something medicinal in this sun, perhaps. A habit-forming drug. I like it. It’s hot, but I like to feel it soaking through me. I’ve had strange dreams all this day, being under it. And—other times. When Mrs. Fanning is asleep in the afternoon—or doesn’t want to talk, and no one else is there—I go out into the meadow and lie flat in the long grass and let the sun pound me. The meadow behind your house … It’s not genteel. You must tell no one.”

He felt that an intense coarseness was creeping into his voice, and desperately he tried to keep it out—make his words limp and casual and reassuring. “I like that field. Ty and I played there, sometimes, when we were boys. After I was older, I used to sit out there at night. Near the thorn-bushes, where there’s a marshy place below. Sometimes I’d fall asleep and not wake up until morning.”

“How odd.” That little brandy voice of hers—so smooth, and holding a spiny breathlessness beneath its surface. This was the first time that Bale had ever been aware of a woman’s voice, as a thing tangible and quite apart from her. “Didn’t your parents come to search for you?”

“There wasn’t anyone but Grandfather, and he’d be asleep.”

“You were an orphan. Mr. Bale? Your parents—”

“They died before I could remember them. It was an epidemic. A baby sister came; she died, and then my mother, and my father followed within a week. But I can’t remember.”