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the fine patinas and the perishable gilt, all were spook-white in their coverings against the grime of summer. Somewhere far-off in this gloom of snow and drawn draperies a telephone was ringing.
    Grady heard it as she came in. First, before answering it, she led Clyde down a hall so sumptuous that if you at one end had spoken no one at the other would have heard: the door to her own room was the last on a line of many. It was the only room that the housekeeper, in closing the apartment, had left exactly as it was in winter. Originally it had belonged to Apple, but after her marriage Grady had inherited it. Much as she had tried to rid it of Apple’s froufrou a good deal remained: nasty little perfume cabinets, a hassock big as a bed, a bed as big as a cloud. But she had wanted the room anyway,for it had French doors leading onto a balcony with a view over all the park.
    Clyde lingered by the door; he had not wanted to come, had said he was not dressed right; and now the ringing telephone seemed to agitate further uncertainties. Grady made him sit down on the hassock. In the center of it there was a phonograph and a stack of records. Sometimes when she was alone she liked to sprawl there playing sluggish songs that nicely accompanied all kinds of queer thoughts. “Play the machine,” she said, and, asking why in God’s name it hadn’t stopped, went to answer the phone. It was Peter Bell: dinner? Of course she remembered, but not there, and please, not the Plaza, and no, she didn’t want Chinese food; and no, really, she was absolutely alone, what merriment? oh the phonograph—uh huh, Billie Holiday; all right, Pomme Souffle, seven sharp, see you. As Grady put down the receiver she made a wish that Clyde would ask who had called.
    It was not to be granted. So, of her own accord, she said, “Isn’t that lovely? I won’t have to eat alone after all: Peter Bell’s going to take me to dinner.”
    “Hmm.” Clyde went on shuffling through the records. “Say, you got ‘Red River Valley’?”
    “I’ve never heard of it,” she said briskly, and threw open the French doors. He at least could have asked who Peter Bellwas. From the balcony she could see steeples and pennants far over the city quivering in a solution of solid afternoon: though even now the sky was growing fragile and soon would crumble into twilight. He might be gone before then; and thinking so, she turned back into the room, expectant, urgent.
    He had moved from the hassock to the bed; sitting there on the edge of it, and the bed so big all around him, he looked wistfully small: and apprehensive, as though someone might walk in and catch him here where he had no business being. As if taking protection from her, he put his arms around Grady and rolled her down beside him. “We waited a long time for one of these,” he said, “it ought to be good in a bed, honey.” The bed was covered in blue and the blue spread before her like depthless sky; but it seemed all unfamiliar, a bed she could’ve sworn she’d never seen: strange lakes of light rippled the silk surface, the bolstered pillows were mountains of unexplored terrain. She’d never been afraid in the car or among the wooded places they’d found across the river and high upon the Palisades: but the bed, with its lakes and skies and mountains, seemed so impressive, so serious, that it frightened her.
    “You cold or something?” he said. She strained against him; she wanted to pass clear through him: “It’s a chill, it’s nothing”; and then, pushing a little away: “Say you love me.”
    “I said it.”
    “No, oh no. You haven’t. I was listening. And you never do.”
    “Well, give me time.”
    “Please.”
    He sat up and glanced at a clock across the room. It was after five. Then decisively he pulled off his windbreaker and began to unlace his shoes.
    “Aren’t you going to, Clyde?”
    He grinned back at her. “Yeah, I’m going to.”
    “I don’t mean that; and what’s more,