“They aren’t servants. They’re working in the office. There’s an office in the back of the house. We’ve been very busy the last month. Whenever a new semester is beginning there’s a lot to do. We’re trying to get some children ready for the schools in Arkansas. It isn’t easy to talk the parents into letting them go.” She put down a spoon she had been using to stir a pot of rice. “I wouldn’t let mine go. I don’t even have them. Charles won’t have them here.”

“I’m sorry you are sad.”

“There is a price for everything, Rhoda. Nothing worthwhile is free.”

“‘For each ecstatic instant/We must an anguish pay.’”

“‘In keen and quivering ratio/To the ecstasy.’” She smiled into my eyes. “Where did you grow up, Rhoda? If not in the South.”

“In a small town in Illinois. I was a cheerleader and I wrote the school play. Then they dragged me to Kentucky but the schools there weren’t good enough so they sent me to a girl’s school in Virginia. Then they sent me to Vanderbilt, then I went to Tuscaloosa, then I ran off and got married and had two babies. So that is that. I want some more wine if it’s okay. Is there plenty?”

“What do you mean? That is that?” She filled my glass. She leaned into me. “Go on.”

“So now I’m home again. I live with my parents and they give me everything I want and they take care of the children. I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t have anyone to talk to who’s interested in the things I am. Well, at least I’m here today. I want to look at your books if I may. I’ve never seen so many bookshelves.”

“My father’s library is in the hall. And my books and Charles’s are everywhere else. Daddy had poetry from all over the world. Find some. We’ll read it out loud. Donald said you were a reader. He said he spotted you the minute you came bursting in his store.”