But she didn’t withdraw into the house. She stared, squinting into the sun, raptly absorbed as the rider drew closer—now cantering, now trotting—in a display of high spirits. Monica knew very little of horses but she thought the horse—an enormous chestnut with a high-held head and white markings—was a beautiful creature: and the rider, leaning slightly forward in the saddle, appeared to be beautifully in control. “It’s her,” Monica thought.

She could not think of the woman’s name for a few confused moments, then she remembered: Sheila Trask. But she wouldn’t have dared say it aloud, she wouldn’t have known what form was appropriate. Not “Sheila,” surely. But “Miss Trask” was an absurdity.

Sheila Trask greeted Monica’s smile with an apology, rapidly and not altogether audibly murmured, for dropping in uninvited. But she happened to be riding in the area. She was curious too about what Monica had done with the old Dorr place—a couple named Dorr had owned it some years ago, acquaintances of Sheila’s and her husband’s—she remembered the house as charming in ways and problematic in others. And she could use a glass of ice water. . . .

“Of course, come in, please come in,” Monica said. She added, blushing, a little rattled: “I was watching you ride and you ride so well, I was hoping you’d turn into someone I know, and— But of course I don’t know anything, really, about horses—about horseback riding—”

Something affronted and hesitant in Monica’s voice, some subtle flicker of reluctance in her expression, must have struck Sheila Trask: for a long strained moment she remained sitting stiffly in the saddle, her hands locked at the base of the horse’s neck, regarding Monica with frank searching eyes. She was a very attractive woman in a harsh, rather slapdash way. Her black eyes glinted with something derisive and covert, a childlike offer of complicity, mutual recognition. At the same time she clearly shrank from misjudging her welcome and being rejected. She spoke so quickly and in so low a voice Monica could barely hear. “. . . If I’m interrupting your work, or your plans . . . if you have another visitor . . .”

“No, not at all,” Monica said.

“But I am uninvited. . . .”

“Please have a drink,” Monica said, “ice water or whatever you’d like—I mean, of whatever I have—I think there’s grapefruit juice and soda pop—some wine—of course,” Monica said quickly, feeling her cheeks burn, “—it isn’t first-rate wine, I mean, it probably isn’t anything you would want—”

“Are you sure?” Sheila Trask asked, staring at her.