Out on the porch, where the candles cast confusing shadows, a warm breeze pushed through the leaves encasing the columns, muting the words and music easing through the open parlor windows—a surprisingly pleasant sensation, interrupted by footsteps behind her and the scratch of a match being lit. The man she’d noticed while Daphne did her hatpin trick (he was bulky, but with soft, intelligent eyes and a way of seeming to pay real attention) lit his pipe and said, “That dress suits you.”

“Thank you,” she said. She’d hoped, backing out of the room, that no one would see her. Twice she’d tried to insert herself into the conversation Mrs. Thaxter was orchestrating about the floating seaweeds; twice she’d been rebuffed. Bored and annoyed, she’d slipped off for a few minutes of quiet. She smoothed the tucks of her only good dress, glad now that Daphne had convinced her to bring it for evening events.

“The color,” he continued. “The line of the neck. You can tell it’s a success just by the way Mrs. Thaxter treats you. Your friend’s in no such danger.”

“What do you mean?”

He nodded at the circle, visible through the open windows. “Dear Mrs. Thaxter likes being the queen of the hive,” he said. “She doesn’t always welcome attractive women.”

“Me?” Henrietta laughed. For years Daphne had been chasing suitors away, while she’d only had to deal with Mason. “She must like you, if you flatter her like that.”

“She does like me,” he said quietly. “And we all like her. She makes us welcome, she admires our paintings, she sells them to her hotel guests. I’d do anything for her. But these evenings—the same people, in the same room, saying the same things, pretending rapture over the same poems and flowers . . . it’s not surprising you found it tiresome.”

“I was mostly hot,” Henrietta protested.

“But also bored, I think. And maybe feeling a little left out? I was watching your face. Your friend was treating you like an assistant.”

He puffed out a little cloud, which hung between them. Daphne, she thought, had simply been focused on impressing Mrs. Thaxter. And why was he watching her face? From the other side of the tennis courts came the clack of something hitting a rock and then a man’s quick bark of laughter.

“Do gather,” Mrs. Thaxter called. “Everyone—Donald is going to play Beethoven for us now. Everyone come!”

Henrietta turned but couldn’t force herself through the door. Behind her, the painter laughed. “Where are your manners?” he said.

“Where are yours?”