No wife, he said. Been divorced for many years.

“And her family?”

Henry mentioned the Mishkins of New Rochelle, later Weehawken.

Mishkin, he explained, was a well-known slumlord family in the waterfront district of that urban-surburban North Jersey complex. Or perplex, as they say.

She peered at her smoking cigarette. “I see…”

Claire came bustling up with her violin case, cashmere shawl upon her shoulders. The three walked under the trees, around the corner of the music hall, to a parking lot. Mrs. Mellon unlocked the door of a substantial gray motorcar of recent European extraction. She took the cased violin from Henry’s hands, stowed it on the passenger’s seat and kissed her daughter on the cheek. “Don’t forget, dear, you have classes in the morning.”

“I’ll be home in an hour, Mother.”

“It’s eleven already.”

“I know that, Mother.”

“And you, Mr. Lightcap—” She gave him a thin ironic smile. “I do hope that we meet again someday—perhaps in another of America’s splendid national parks or forests.”

Henry agreed. For a moment, holding the car door open and observing her form as she eased gracefully into the driver’s seat, he imagined the lady spread-eagled on an Indian blanket, nude beneath a canopy of whispering pines as he, Ranger Lightcap, performed his manly duty. Having Grace under pressure.

They watched her drive away.

“Did she give you a hard time?”

“Your mother is a concerned woman.”

“She’s a prig and a snob but I love her anyway. Let’s walk.”

They walked through the park near the concert hall. They shared the banalities of tentative love. Whom did she love most? Mozart, she said, and after Mozart, Stravinsky. I don’t like either of those guys much, he admitted. I can tell, she said, but if you ever want to be a gentleman you must learn to admire them both. What about Minnie Pearl? he inquired. Minnie’s all right in her way, she said, but for real country give me Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. They’re good, he agreed, but I like Dmitri better. Shostakovich? she asked. No, he said, Kabalevsky. Oh bland, she said, bland as tapioca, oh Henry you must be kidding. I’m kidding, he said.

He slipped an arm around her waist. She leaned toward him. Thigh against thigh, they walked beneath the well-groomed elms. Her moving hip, beneath his hand, felt like warm black velvet. I love this dress you’re wearing. It is rather sexy, isn’t it?; but all the women in the orchestra were wearing black; you must have noticed. Can’t say I did. What a liar you are. Come with me, he said. Where? Anywhere. (Oh my God, Claire, anywhere, he thought, anywhere.) Can’t you be more specific, Henry? South, he suggested; let’s go down to Tampico, lay on the beach all winter long. Can’t, she said.

That was that.

They walked in silence for a while, under the trees, around and around in a meandering loop before the muted glow of the concert hall. Beyond, illuminated by hidden floodlights, the dome of the state capitol shone against the night sky.