Keisha reaches into her cloth handbag to show me pictures on her cell phone—a succession of smiling faces. One of them is the insolent brute on the bicycle—I recognize him at once.

“They are the light of my life,” Keisha says, sniffing. “Well, I mean—Jesus is the light of my life. But my daughter Jill, she’s nineteen, just that age when I was married, and—”

I am calculating how to end this politely and flee. Shall I give Keisha the envelope as I’d planned? Or—shall I not?

Both Keisha and I are finished with our meals. Neither of us has been very hungry. But I have ordered a second glass of wine.

How pathetic it seems to me now, my notion of willing this woman one million dollars! No wonder Gopnik stared at me as if I were mad.

This woman. In my disappointment, I am angry with her. I seem to have forgotten who Keisha is, why she is here.

Have pity. She is a figure of pathos, not contempt.

Keisha has laid down her fork. Her eyes move toward her wrist, she is anxious about the time.

Quickly I assure her that the meeting has been a success, in my opinion. “And here are our envelopes, as promised.”

For it seems that two envelopes have been placed, unobtrusively, on a ledge beside the window of our table, beside my chair. The one addressed to MS. KEISHA OLEN contains ten crisp bills, and the other, addressed to a fictitious name, contains, as filler, a many-times-folded newspaper page.

“Oh! Thank you …”

Keisha takes the envelope from me with an expression more of dread than anticipation. “I guess—I’ll wait to open it later. I’m kind of afraid—what’s inside …”

This is disappointing to me, I think. But no—the money is hers. She must do with it what she will.

“And I also, my dear. It will be a private revelation.”

As Keisha puts the envelope into the deepest recesses of the slightly soiled fabric handbag, so I fold my envelope in two and slip it into an inside pocket of the camel’s hair coat.

I am feeling such strain, it seems that Keisha and I have been together for hours. In fact, we have been at our riverside table less than one hour. So soon ended! But my predominant feeling is relief.

We are on our feet. Another time I see that Keisha is thin-limbed, fragile. I am hoping that the money I have given her will help her in some way to thrive. But I am reconciled to the likelihood that surely, yes, she will spend the money on others far less worthy than herself. For that is Keisha’s character, and character is fate impervious to “plot.”

On our way out of the restaurant, the waiter, whom I have lavishly tipped, bids us good evening. The host, with a bemused air, says “Have a good evening.”