conjecture about Isabel Howat and Ludowika Winscombe; but something
within him, automatic and certain, whispered that no comparison was
possible. His mother possessed a quality of spirit that he had never
found elsewhere; he could see, in spite of their resemblance of blood
and position, that the elder could never have been merely provocative.
Such distinctions, he divined, were the result of qualities mysterious
and deeply concealed. Love, that he had once dismissed as the principle
of blind procreation, became more complex, enigmatic. He had no
increased desire to experience it, with the inevitable loss of personal
liberty; but he began to be conscious of new depths, unexpected
complications, in human relationship.

He was not so sure of himself.

They had moved to the less formal of the rooms used as places of
gathering. The bed in a corner was hung in blue shalloon over ruffled
white muslin, and there was blue at the windows. Against the wall a
clavichord, set aside as obsolete, raised its dusky red ebony box on
grooved legs. Myrtle was seated at it picking out an air from
Belshazzar. She held each note in a silvery vibration that had the
fragility of old age. Ludowika was by the fire, quartered across a
corner; there was no stove, and the wood burning in the opening sent out
frequent, pungent waves of smoke. She coughed and cursed. "Positively,"
she declared, "I'll turn salt like a smoked herring."

She rose, her gaze resting on Howat. "I must go out," she continued;
"breathe." He was strangely reluctant to accompany her, his feet were
leaden. Nevertheless, in a few moments he found himself at her side on
the lawn. Her sophistication had again disappeared, beneath the stars
drawn across the hills, over Myrtle Forge. There was a pause in the