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years, even on such an occasion,” she said graciously. “I very much appreciate your coming. I think Ingram would have been surprised at how many colleagues have come to speak well of him.” That was also a total fiction. He would have expected everyone. Not Aaron Clive, of course, because he did not know him. Ingram had never been to San Francisco, or any other part of America. In fact, as far as she knew he had not traveled beyond the coast of Britain. He liked to be where he was known, and had earned his place, his respect, and where those in power recognized him. And, of course, where those without power were suitably afraid of him.
    “I hope he would have been pleased,” Aaron said in reply to her. He did not bother to gaze around. Did he already know most of these people? Probably not. He was simply too sophisticated to display his interest, or perhaps even to entertain it in the first place.
    “And I’m sure quite touched,” Beata replied with what she knew was the right sentiment. Perhaps Ingram would have been. She realized with sadness that she had very little idea of what he believed, or felt, behind the barrier of anger and self-defense. It had become habit, and over the last few years she had gradually ceased to care. It was a matter of keeping the bitterness to a minimum: overcivilized conversations with barbarity just below the surface.
    Aaron was smiling at her. He had one hand very gently on Miriam’s arm. It was a gesture of warmth, almost of protection. For a brief instant Beata envied Miriam. How could Miriam Clive, of all people, have the faintest idea what it was like to be married to a man you were frightened of, and yet whom you both pitied and were revolted by? She would be imagining Beata deep in grief, as she would have been for Aaron, almost stunned by loss. Whereas Beata was suddenly free, even if freedom was also daunting. No, challenging was the word.
    “I hope that we shall see you again,” Aaron was saying. “After your mourning, of course. We have been too long out of touch. Our fault, I’m afraid…”
    “Perhaps something suitable before then?” Miriam suggested. “A walk in the park? An art gallery, or photographic exhibition? To be alone too much is…hard.” There was warmth in her eyes, extraordinarily direct, as she had always been. Memories of other times and places flooded Beata’s mind: a sharper sunlight, dry heat burning the skin, the sounds of horses, and wheels rattling over rougher, unpaved roads, salt in the wind.
    Then it was gone again. She was standing at the church door, alone. Aaron and Miriam had moved on, speaking to other people. They were all drifting slowly toward the graveside. Some of the women chose not to go. The burial would be brief, and in a desperate, physical sense, final. Odd. Women gave birth, nursed the sick, and washed the dead and prepared them for burial; yet often it was not considered suitable that they should be at a graveside, as if they would be too emotionally fragile to behave with decorum.
    Beata decided to wait here, at the church door, rather than pick her way through the somber beauty of the graveyard with its crosses and memorials.
    Several other people passed her, the women going toward their carriages where they could wait seated, and in some warmth. Beata envied them, but it was right that she should wait here and speak to all those who came.
    Then she saw Oliver Rathbone about thirty feet away. It was the late autumn light on his hair that she noticed first, and as he turned she recognized his face. She had thought he would come, but she had not searched for him. Now, as he took his leave of the man he had been talking with, and started to walk toward her, she found herself suddenly short of breath. They knew each other so well—at least in some ways. It was Ingram who had been responsible for giving Rathbone the case that had brought him down, so soon after he had been made a judge himself. Had Ingram known that the