“Where do you think we might find a pen-knife?”

They stood together. How simple it was. He walked as if destiny had taken over his muscles and he was riding along. The crowds had thinned, many more people outside now; the instinct of actors had taken over, and they sensed the onset of a buffet. The food, courtesy of Goldwyn, looked magnificent, and players dressed as preening French chefs were in line to serve minuscule portions while intoning to each customer exactly how thankful he or she should be to receive them. Plates and napkins were in hand. No one was eager to be first, but perhaps fifty were willing to be second.

“Wait,” Frances said. They were at the edge of the living room. “Do you know the layout of the house?”

“A little.”

“It’s like the letter ‘F.’”

“Just like everything,” he said.

“If you go all the way down the hall, there’s a wing that doesn’t face the patio.”

“I like how you think.”

“The farthest bedroom? At the very end of the hall.”

“I’m going to make myself known on the patio,” Chaplin said. “Five minutes.”

They split off in perpendicular directions, Frances strolling down the length of hallway, and Chaplin ambling outside and grabbing a dinner plate and getting in line. He made much of the discovery that brownies were for dessert, and declared them the opiate of the masses, which caused some laughter. He noted the government man, who sat on the edge of an Adirondack chair, plate in hand, staring at the queue of diners as if intimidated.

As the line progressed, Chaplin demonstrably remembered, shooting his cuffs and examining his nailbeds, that he needed to wash up before dinner. He excused himself and headed back into the house. He went through the living room and the game room, and as he passed the kitchen, the swinging door blasted open, slamming to the wall. An apologetic waiter burdened with a platter of coq au vin squeezed by.

Farther down the hall was a pair of French doors, closed, which he slipped through and quietly closed again. Before him was a corridor that was dark except for the dim illumination of electric lightbulbs. He counted eight doors, four on each side, as carefully laid out as an urban hotel’s. In the distance was the sound of the party—laughter, the clatter of utensils, and a small orchestra falling in tune, some kind of chamber octet tuning up to play, no doubt, sepulchral music to remind everyone that all was vanity, everyone would die, etc.

Technically, two rooms were the last on the hall: one door to the right, one left. He chose the door that did not face the beach. Easing it open, he saw Frances immediately. She was half propped up against the window seat, somewhere between sitting and standing, her arms folded, her legs extending into the room. She was in a new mood.