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close you and your father have grown. He’s a very sick and a very unhappy man, Francis. He needs all the love you can give him. I forgave him long ago.
    “That life was never for me. People still stay, ‘Oh Vinnie,
how
can you bear living in this little hole, all alone, after those years in that beautiful house full of servants and friends?’ For the longest time nobody’d believe that I liked it. ‘At least move back to Savannah,’ they’d say, ‘where your friends are.’ And always wanting me to meet some charming new man. No thank you! If the finest man
     in the world proposed to me, I’d turn him down. I can read as late as I like, get up when I’m good and ready. There’s that little hot-plate in the pantry where I can cook rice or grits or an egg. You may not believe it, but I’ve found peace of mind more precious than riches. I feel sorry for Ben now, from the bottom of my heart.
    “You’d better prepare yourself for a great shock tomorrow, when you go out to the Cottage. He didn’t stop in town last month, on his way through, but I wrote you about the evening we had in the fall. Of course we went to Pavilion, and I doubt that he ate three mouthfuls. Oh, he got a little tight and started in on how he’d always love me. You know, the old story. I just smiled and squeezed his hand. You could see he was at the end of his
     strength.
How
he survived the winter I don’t know. He told Larry Buchanan years ago that he literally couldn’t bear up under the strain of a divorce from Fern. And now, just when you’d think he’d really settle down, want to live quietly and simply—suddenly there’s Irene Cheek and Natalie Bigelow and this new Englishwoman who latched onto him in Jamaica, all fussing over him, giving him that false flattery he thrives on! I thank God
you’re
not susceptible to it, Son. You’re one of the most level-headed people I know.
    “Why can’t people learn to face the truth? I didn’t
have
to let these gray streaks show. But believe me, if I began touching them up, I’m the one who’d be fooled. Those other women are so pathetic!
    “Run along now, you have a lot to do. Give Daddy my love and have a nice long visit with him. Do get a haircut, as a favor to me, will you? And don’t worry. I’ll be on my feet in a day or two. I
love
my presents. And it’s,” she kissed him,
“so
wonderful to have you back. Wait! I put some lipstick on your chin. Bend down, I’ve a Kleenex right here.”
    These were a few of the things Francis’s mother said to him on the occasion of their first meeting in over two years. Glancing back from her bedroom door, he saw that she had already put on her glasses and reopened her book, squaring her shoulders as she began to read. It was a gesture he had forgotten, and it touched him as much as any she had made all afternoon.
    Not that he had been touched, to speak of. He lingered still in the daze of having arrived, of taxis, telephones, the enchanting summer city, the sickening costly hotel. Houses were being demolished. Women on street-corners were describing to one another their first experiences in Italian restaurants. Beyond all this, his customary response to his mother—and Francis marveled only at how soon he had felt it operate, once settled in the little needlepoint chair
     beside her chaise longue—was a silence no less marked than her own talkativeness. Both silence and talk, furthermore, hinted at states of mind not easily enlarged upon. Forbearance? Disillusion?—the words flickered and went out. And yet, on first sight of her, kissing her at the dim door, hadn’t he felt like talking? And hadn’t she listened? Her eyes followed him about the small room, her laugh met his own. Admiringly she caressed the scarves and gloves he
     had brought her. Francis had a pleasant sense of being too
big
for her bedroom, of ornaments rattling as he tramped about; and not till now, strolling down Madison Avenue, was he able even to put the