“This place is pretty close to heaven.”

She shook her head.

“I never wanted this place,” she said. “It was John’s idea. Nothing was too good for me. But I’ve got it and what can I do? Sometime you ought to write about the poor rich, left with their servants and houses and charities while the government takes most of their money.”

She always had a naïve idea that because I used a typewriter I could write.

“You could let me go,” I suggested. “After all, the summer is about over. You’ll be going to Palm Beach after Christmas.”

But she refused that with a gesture. “That’s the last thing I’ll do,” she said, and getting up came over and put her arm around me. “I’ve been really happy since you came,” she said. “Stick by me, Pat. I need you.”

That was on a Monday in August. She went into the city the next day, in her shining limousine, went gaily and cheerfully, as though she had no worries or had forgotten them. She was taking Margery Stoddard with her, leaving her in town to come out with Julian, and Margery had walked over by the path. She had brought her two little girls with her, and their English nurse.

“Julian’s having our pool repaired,” she said. “May they swim in the playhouse?”

I got the key and they started off. Margery sat down on the terrace and fanned herself, but I thought she looked worried. She glanced around before she spoke.

“Look here, Pat,” she said. “Has Evans seen anyone lurking around the place at night?”

“He hasn’t said so.”

She lowered her voice.

“There was a man at the Farm last night. I couldn’t sleep for the heat, and I went outside. He disappeared when he saw me. It wasn’t any of our own people. I’ve asked. It’s my children I’m thinking about, Pat. If anything happened to them—”

Then Maud appeared, and I remember waving them off and going back to my office, totally unaware that the first happy phase of my life at the Cloisters was over.

Tony came home early that day. I was busy at my desk when he came in, and for once he seemed to have nothing to do. He sat down on the edge of the desk and picked up a letter for Maud which had just arrived. He scowled at its blue envelope.

“When did this come?” he asked.

“Afternoon mail.”

“Has Mother seen it?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Then she isn’t going to,” he said, and put it in his pocket.

I protested, but he was firm.

“See here, my darling,” he said, “don’t interfere in things that don’t concern you. This is a private matter. And another thing, sweetheart. If you tell Maud about it I’ll bite off one of your pretty ears. That’s final. I mean it.”

He went out then, and soon after I heard him leaving in his car. He always drove fast, but that day I felt that something serious had sent him off as if he had been fired out of a gun.