“And deprive you of a fascinating little puzzle to solve?” He shook his head with theatrical resoluteness. “Wouldn’t dream of it. A genius like you needs challenges. Otherwise he goes to pot.”

As Gurney stared at Hardwick, it dawned on him what was wrong, what was off. Underneath the prickly banter, which was the man’s customary approach to the world, there seemed to be a not-so-customary tension. Edginess was part of Hardwick’s personality, but what Gurney detected in his expression now was more nervousness than edginess. It made him wonder what was coming. The man’s unsettledness was contagious.

It didn’t help that Madeleine had chosen a rather jittery piece for her cello practice.

Hardwick began walking around the long room, touching the backs of chairs, corners of tables, potted plants, decorative bowls and bottles and candlesticks that Madeleine had picked up in the area’s inexpensive antique shops. “Love this place! Just love it! It’s so fucking authentic!” He stopped and ran his hands back through his bristly crew cut. “You know what I mean?”

“That it’s fucking authentic?”

“The whole deal here—it’s pure country. Look at that cast-iron woodstove, made in America, as American as fucking pancakes. Look at you—lean, all-American, Robert Redford kind of guy. Look at them wide floorboards, straight and honest as the trees they came from.”

“Those.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Those wide floorboards. Not them wide floorboards.”

Hardwick stopped pacing. “The fuck are you talking about?”

“Is there a point to this visit?”

Hardwick grimaced. “Ah, Davey, Davey—all business, as usual. You dismiss my attempt at a few pleasantries, my efforts at social lubrication, a few friendly compliments on the puritan simplicity of your home decor—”

“Jack …”

“Right. Fuck the pleasantries. Where do we sit?”

Gurney motioned to the small round table by the French doors.

When they were seated across from each other, Gurney leaned back and waited.

Hardwick closed his eyes, massaging his face roughly with his hands as though trying to eradicate some deep itching under the skin. Then he folded his hands on the table and began speaking. “You ask if there’s a point to my visit. Yes, there is. An opportunity. You know that thing from Julius Caesar about a tide in the affairs of men?”

“What about it?”

Hardwick leaned forward, as though the words contained life’s ultimate secret. The chronic mockery had disappeared from his voice. “There is a tide in the affairs of men / Which, taken at the flood leads on to fortune. / Omitted, all the voyage of their life / is bound in shallows and in miseries.”

“You memorized that just for me?”

“Learned it in school. Always stayed with me.”

“Never heard you mention it before.”

“The right situation never came up before.”

“But now …?”

A tic yanked at the corner of Hardwick’s mouth. “Now the right moment has arrived.”

“A tide in your affairs—?”

“In our affairs.”

“Yours and mine?”

“Exactly.”