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kissed him on the lips while Valenter and the boy looked on gravely.
    “How are you?” she asked.
    Valenter brought her a glass of red wine. She was seated next to Blank on the leather sofa. Valenter stirred up the fire, added another small log, went to stand behind the armchair where Anthony coiled in flickering shadow.
    “I think the Mortons’ party will be amusing,” he offered. “A lot of people. Noisy and crowded. But we don’t have to stay long.”
    “Have you ever smoked hashish?” she asked.
    He looked nervously toward the young boy.
    “I tried it once,” he said in a low voice. “It didn’t do anything for me. I prefer alcohol.”
    “Do you drink a lot?”
    “No.”
    The boy was wearing white flannel bags, white leather loafers, a white knitted singlet that left his slim arms bare. He moved slowly, crossing his legs, stretching, pouting. Celia Montfort turned her head to look at him. Did a signal pass?
    “Tony,” she said.
    Immediately Valenter put a hand tenderly on the boy’s shoulder.
    “Time for your lethon, Mathter Montfort,” he said.
    “Oh, pooh,” Tony said.
    They walked from the room side by side. The lad stopped at the door, turned back, made a solemn bow in Blank’s direction.
    “I am very happy to have met you, sir,” he said formally.
    Then he was gone. Valenter closed the door softly behind them.
    “A handsome boy,” Daniel said. “What school does he go to?”
    She didn’t answer. He turned to look at her. She was peering into her wine glass, twirling the stem slowly in her long fingers. The straight black hair fell about her face: the long face, broody and purposeful.
    She put her wine glass aside and rose suddenly. She moved casually about the room, and he swiveled his head to keep her in view. She touched things, picked them up and put them down. He was certain she was naked beneath the satin shift. Cloth touched her and flew away. It clung, and whispered off.
    As she moved about, she began to intone another of what was apparently an inexhaustible repertoire of monologues. He was conscious of planned performance. But it was not a play; it was a ballet, as formalized and obscure. Above all, he felt intent : motive and plan.
    “My parents are such sad creatures,” she was saying. “Living in history. But that’s not living at all, is it? It’s an entombing. Mother’s silk chiffon and father’s plus-fours. They could be breathing mannequins at the Costume Institute. I look for dignity and all I find is…What is it I want? Grandeur, I suppose. Yes. I’ve thought of it. But is it impossible to be grand in life? What we consider grandeur is always connected with defeat and death. The Greek plays. Napoleon’s return from Moscow. Lincoln. Superhuman dignity there. Nobility, if you like. But always rounded with death. The living, no matter how noble they may be, never quite make it, do they? But death rounds them out. What if John Kennedy had lived? No one has ever written of his life as a work of art, but it was. Beginning, middle, and end. Grandeur. And death made it. Are you ready? Shall we go?”
    “I hope you like French cooking,” he muttered. “I called for a reservation.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” she said.
    The dance continued during dinner. She requested a banquette: they sat side by side. They ate and drank with little conversation. Once she picked up a thin sliver of tender veal and fed it into his mouth. But her free hand was on his arm, or in his lap, or pushing her long hair back so that the bottle green satin was brought tight across button nipples. Once, while they were having coffee and brandy, she crossed her knees. Her dress hiked up; the flesh of her thighs was perfectly white, smooth, glistening. He thought of good sea scallops and Dover sole.
    “Do you like opera?” she asked in her abrupt way.
    “No,” he said truthfully. “Not much. It’s so—so made up.”
    “Yes,” she agreed, “it is. Artificial. But it’s just a device: a