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VI

It was May when he next found her. The luncheon in Zu-
rich was a council of caution; obviously the logic of his life
tended away from the girl; yet when a stranger stared at her
from a nearby table, eyes burning disturbingly like an un-
charted light, he turned to the man with an urbane version
of intimidation and broke the regard.
‘He was just a peeper,’ he explained cheerfully. ‘He was
just looking at your clothes. Why do you have so many dif-
ferent clothes?’
‘Sister says we’re very rich,’ she offered humbly. ‘Since
Grandmother is dead.’
‘I forgive you.’
He was enough older than Nicole to take pleasure in her
youthful vanities and delights, the way she paused fraction-
ally in front of the hall mirror on leaving the restaurant,
so that the incorruptible quicksilver could give her back
to herself. He delighted in her stretching out her hands to
new octaves now that she found herself beautiful and rich.
He tried honestly to divorce her from any obsession that he
had stitched her together—glad to see her build up happi-
ness and confidence apart from him; the difficulty was that,
eventually, Nicole brought everything to his feet, gifts of
sacrificial ambrosia, of worshipping myrtle.
The first week of summer found Dick re-established in

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