She looked worn. She was older than Max by at least a decade; he didn’t know how old, really. She was a tall, thin woman with a face that was plain in repose. But when she spoke, when her interest was aroused, her hands flew about and her shoulders moved, and the plain face with the dark narrow eyes and narrow features radiated a kind of passionate energy. She was never beautiful, in any sense that Max could think of, but she could make beauty seem insignificant. Now, assigned to tell her she was derelict in her duties, he realized how wearisome and grating a task it was. If she was “drifting,” as Calvin had said, she would indeed drift.

“Calvin said you were drifting,” he said.

“He’s right, that flea,” she said with a touch of a tall woman’s contempt for a little man.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“No,” she said. “Not yet. I’ll tell you this. I’m not going to write the column any more. You can tell them I haven’t the time, too much work. Don’t say anything about Simon’s book.”

“Theda. It’s been six years since Simon died. And they know you’re writing something.”

A nerve jumped along her jaw. Her skin turned a shade lighter. She got up and went to a peg where she took down a sun hat and placed it on her head. Then she came back and sat down. She took the hat off, put it on. For a moment he thought she’d gone crazy.

“I’m not crazy,” she said. “The sun’s in my eyes. I like sitting near the tree, but the sun is beastly at this window. I know how long he’s been dead.”

He tried to say what he knew he ought to say to her, but uncertainty kept him quiet.

“Oh, I know,” she said. “Why am I brooding about him? Well, I never stopped. It simply surfaced. Why did it surface this last year? Because I’m getting old, and all the dead things are floating up. The dead things in my mind. I’ve been throwing them out one by one. When I came to Simon, I began to grieve all over again as if I’d never grieved before. And I hadn’t. What monsters…I am a monster, I mean. His death made me into something special for myself, you see. It was exciting. I was excited by his death.”