“You disappeared last night,” he said. Quite gently, almost as if he weren’t doing it, he rested two fingertips on her forearm.

“I was embarrassed,” she said. “Weren’t you? I couldn’t face going back inside the parlor.”

“I’m sure it would have been fine,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” she said, and told him about her breakfast conversation with Daphne. “Apparently,” she concluded, “I’m banished.”

He frowned. “I’m sure Mrs. Thaxter didn’t mean that. Your friend must have misinterpreted what she said.”

Only a few minutes later, when Sebby left for his easel and she returned to her desk, did she realize that she might have implied that the incidents of the night before had caused a real rift. But as brusque as Daphne had been at breakfast, she was sure Daphne’s disapproval wouldn’t last; they’d had worse spats and misunderstandings over the last dozen years. Often Daphne pulled away when she was first offended, only to bounce back elastically, once she’d scared herself, across the gap she’d created. The best thing was not to argue but to wait quietly for a day or two.

Henrietta ate her lunch alone twice more and both times made excuses for Daphne’s absence when she ran into Sebby at the letter boxes. Daphne, she explained, working furiously on the short essays meant to introduce each phylum and class in her book, was taking her midday meal in her room.

“Busy woman,” he said. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt, exposing his forearms and the little flecks of paint—carmine, cobalt, golden yellow—that dotted the tanned skin but not the burnished hairs. “Organizing the entertainments for Mrs. Thaxter’s guests must take a lot of time too.”

She shrugged, pretending that wasn’t news. She knew Daphne continued to visit the cottage in the evenings, but they’d avoided talking about Mrs. Thaxter’s gatherings during their quiet dinners together: simply, Henrietta thought, Daphne being discreet.

“The night before last, she arranged a little artificial pool and filled it with plants and creatures she’d gathered from the rock pools,” he noted. “Last night”—was he summoned there every night?—“she brought more seaweeds to mount, enough so everyone could try. I sketched those, and also some of the guests. She’s good at knowing what will interest people.”

“She is,” Henrietta said. “She’s very gifted that way.”

“Gifted socially, too,” Sebby said. Was that admiration in his voice, or a sarcastic imitation? “She’s making quite a friend of Mrs. Thaxter, and also some of her literary circle.”