Then, in the early summer, when Monica was taken by a real estate agent to look at various rentals in the area, she was again informed, casually, that Sheila Trask would be practically a neighbor of hers if she rented the house—a five-bedroom farmhouse—she wanted most. Of course, the real estate agent added, it wasn’t likely she would ever meet Sheila Trask since the woman was always traveling. And she spent a great deal of time in New York. She was reclusive, perhaps a bit eccentric, unpredictable, hard to please—so the local merchants said—not universally liked. Monica had hesitated to seem inquisitive—she wanted, here in Glenkill, to establish another sort of reputation altogether—but Betty Connor seemed so guileless, so genuinely friendly, she couldn’t resist asking in what ways Sheila Trask was eccentric. “Various ways,” Mrs. Connor said, retreating at once, “I don’t know her personally, of course. . . . Maybe you’ll meet her yourself.” Did she go out of her way to be disagreeable? Monica asked. “Well,” said Mrs. Connor, “the first thing you’d say about her isn’t that she’s disagreeable, in fact she’s usually charming, very charming, she appeals to a certain kind of man—and woman too, I suppose. But maybe you’ll meet her yourself. Then you can form your own judgement.”

By the time of the Greenes’ party, months later, Monica had quite forgotten about Sheila Trask. In the strain and exhaustion and frequent euphoria of her first weeks of teaching Monica had forgotten a great deal: she had become, rushing from place to place, trying cheerfully to memorize a hundred or more new names, a kind of amnesiac—her earlier life, her earlier preoccupations, had been wonderfully blotted out. Many years ago she had been a golden girl of sorts—she had even looked rather golden—and now it seemed to her that another shadowless epoch of her life might be imminent. If she proceeded with caution. If she behaved very, very prudently.

“I don’t remind myself of myself at all,” Monica murmured aloud, amused. “I seem to be so happy.”

She had surprised everyone who knew her, her ex-husband in particular, by accepting an invitation to teach at a private boys’ school in rural Pennsylvania. Surely she might have done better? Surely she might have waited until something more congenial turned up? But in this phase of her life Monica was done with waiting for the reward, or the fate, she deserved; she was eager to make do with comparatively little. She was eager simply to forget.