“Ma’am,” Sidney said at last. “Irene . . .” He gave a frozen idiotic smile.

She had the strength to get out of the room without falling, the ability somehow to walk down the stairs, and into her private writing room. She closed and locked the door. The passage of time seemed endless to her. She barely thought, she did not weep, she was mindless as a stunned bird. She had grown up, she realized, despite her marriage, and her having been educated at fashionable colleges, having studied Greek and French, ignorant of men, ignorant too of women, ignorant of life. She understood though now Vance’s “mission.”

She had just enough self-­knowledge also to realize that it was her jealousy and envy which were making her so sick at this moment.

Then she heard the knock. It could be only one person.

She admired Sidney’s manner. He had dressed almost formally, and was wearing one of her son’s neckties, which irritated her.

“Mrs. Vaisey,” he began, as she rose and greeted him with a cold nod. “I suppose you wish me to leave . . .”

“I never told you, Sidney, that your brother was here a week ago.”

“Vance came here?”

“Evidently he knows you better than I do . . .”

She sat down at her spinet desk and began writing out a check. She handed it to him.

“What is this?” he cried on seeing the excessive amount of the denomination. “I won’t take it,” he said, handing it back to her.

“You have deceived me,” she spoke tunelessly and without expression.

“No, ma’am, I have not,” he replied. “I’m not ashamed of love, either, though,” he told her, both decisive and faltering in his speech.

“Love?” she thundered now at him.

“Yes,” he replied, and offered to go.

“Wait a moment,” she said, but as the gnarled old ancient clock ticked away in the study, she could think of nothing to utter. “Very well, then . . .” she was able to say, “the less spoken the better . . .”

“And he’s better because of what is between us, Mrs. Vaisey . . . Do you hear? I won’t share your and Vance’s views on it . . . I’ll be damned if I will . . . You’ll see.”

He went out.

She swallowed one of the strong capsules Dr. Ulric had prescribed for her when under stress, then she walked with the little force she could summon up the sixty steps or so to her boy’s room. The door was shut as if hammered closed. She knocked. There was no answer. She rapped again, then pressed open the door a small crack. “May I come in, Gareth?” As there was no answer, she opened the door wide and stood on the threshold.

Gareth sat in his best suit, with a silver cravat she had never seen him wear before, his hands folded, appearing much the way he had the time Sidney had made his first appearance.