Monica calculated Keith’s age as between thirty-seven and forty-three. (She afterward learned it was thirty-five.) His sandy graying hair, though receding from his forehead, grew thick and springy at the crown of his head; his nose was strong, full, wide-tipped; his eyes intelligent and watchful. He spoke with the faintest of midsouthern accents yet he laughed heartily, even zestfully, if the situation required. He played squash, tennis, and golf; he rose every morning at six without fail and swam two miles in the pool at the Olcottsville Athletic Club; he might have been a few pounds overweight, about the waist in particular, but he carried it well. A man of moderate height, with a moderate frame. And handsome enough, Monica supposed. A subject in two dimensions, a matter of affable surfaces; handsome enough.

If he felt sexual desire for her the desire was evidently well under control. In fact, it seemed to Monica that he treated her rather like a convalescent. (Perhaps Jill Starkie in her mildly hysterical way had hinted that Monica was not yet recovered from her divorce; that she’d been abused—battered?—by her husband.) His kisses were courtly, his caresses gentle. There was invariably an air of apology between him and Monica—a half-embarrassed sense that they were too old for such things yet too young to give them up.

One evening when they were having coffee at Monica’s she brought up the subject, rather impulsively, of suicide. “Have you ever had any suicidal friends?” she asked Keith. Her voice was neutral enough so that he need not become alarmed, or take offense; he might answer casually if he wished.

He took his time replying. “Yes,” he said finally, stroking his jaw, “—a close friend. My roommate at college. But I haven’t thought of him in years.”

“Why not?” Monica asked. She’d had several glasses of white wine at dinner and felt uncharacteristically bold. Why not, indeed.

“Steven and I were extremely close for years,” Keith said. “We were at Choate together; then we roomed together at Virginia, as undergraduates, our junior and senior years. After graduation something happened to Steven and he eventually killed himself. A hunting ‘accident’ in the mountains. . . .” Keith was speaking in a slow flat voice, as if the words in his mouth had density, weight. He said: “Of course everyone knew Steven had been unhappy for years but it was hard to take it seriously because . . . because it had gone on for years, it had become a sort of psychic tic. He was morbid but he joked about it too. He was always joking, in fact. So if you took him at his word he was liable to turn mocking. And then it was all so frustrating and wearisome. . . .”