Chapter 15: Separate Rooms

Daphne handed her glass to a passing waiter and walked across the lawn with her hand on her pearls.

Three hundred people turned to watch her come.

"What a dreadful thing," she said, to the whole tent. "Leonie, darling, are you all right?"

"Ask him who paid for the blue-flag tray," I said.

Her smile did not move.

Her thought was quick and cold. He won't say. Cash, no envelope, nobody saw.

"I don't know what you mean," she said sweetly. "Half of New Haven owns a navy dress."

The head caterer stared at the grass and said nothing.

He was thinking of his wife and the kitchen and the end of his business, and he had decided to say nothing.

I could not prove a thought.

Kellan stepped between us.

"Dr. Wheelock," he said, without looking away from her. "I'd take your guest home."

Dr. Wheelock had gone grey.

He looked at Daphne for a long moment, and then he took his wife's arm and walked out of the tent alone.

Daphne watched him go.

For a second her mouth tightened.

Then she turned back to me, smiled for the donors, and followed him.

The quartet started up again, a little too loudly.

Mrs. Trowbridge picked up a spoon and clinked it on a glass.

"We will eat," she announced, "from the other trays."

Nobody laughed.

But nobody left, either, and a woman from the Slade board squeezed my hand as she passed.

It was past midnight when the last car pulled out of the drive.

Kellan walked me upstairs and stopped outside my door.

"I'll take the chair in your room," he said.

"What?"

"I'll sit up. The door stays locked, the window stays latched, and I stay in the room."

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