He doesn’t move, just stands there smiling inquisitively, and Elfriede realizes that he won’t sit until she does. A gentleman. So she drops back onto her log. Mr. Thorpe finds a boulder. Beneath the collar of his jacket, he wears a scarf of bulky wool. Elfriede drops her gaze to the ground before her, which is cushioned in old brown pine needles.

“You shouldn’t be out,” she says again.

“Do you know, that’s exactly what the orderly told me.”

“You should have listened to the orderly.”

“Oh, I’m used to this sort of weather. I spent my summers in Scotland, with my mother and her sisters. Frightful, most of the time. Of course, when it was fine, there was no lovelier place in the world. Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Smoke?”

He was already drawing a silver case from his jacket pocket. “You’re about to tell me I shouldn’t be smoking, either.”

“But it’s true. You’ve had pneumonia.”

“You’re quite right, of course. I do all sorts of things I shouldn’t do.” He lifts a match, preparing to strike, then lowers it. “I say, you don’t mind, do you? If you object to the smell, I mean.”

“N-no.” Elfriede thinks she should probably have said yes, because tobacco smoke is possibly the last substance on earth that should fill the passages of Mr. Thorpe’s ravaged lungs at the moment, short of poisoned gas. But his pleasure, his anticipation is so obvious, she doesn’t have the heart to deny him. A pattern that will shape all the days they spend together.

“Ah, but you do mind, don’t you? How kind you are. If only I were good enough to return the favor.” He strikes the match and lights the cigarette, and when he’s taken a long draft, eyes shut in pleasure, and exhaled slowly, taking care to release the smoke in the opposite direction from Elfriede, he opens his eyes again and says, “I can’t begin to express my gratitude. First fag in nine weeks. Tell me how to make it up to you.”

“You can stop. You can take care of yourself, so you don’t relapse.”

Mr. Thorpe squints at a point a meter or so to her left. He has the kind of face that suits squinting. Crinkles his expression in a genial way. “I’ve been giving that some thought, actually.”

“I hope so.”

“I mean, my recovery has been altogether too rapid, if you know what I mean. Blessed as I am with my mother’s formidable constitution. Just the other day, they were talking about discharging me.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Well.” He turns back to her, turns the full force of himself upon her blushing cheeks. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think there can be any question. Of course you must get better.”