The bedchamber door opened and Ludie walked in, a sheaf of papers in hand. She wore riding breeches, boots, and a loose linen shirt, belted at the waist, and looked scarcely a day older than he recalled, still lovely—but a mask of hard neutrality tempered her beauty. That look, the attitude it embodied, cued another trickle of memories. They had once been monogamous, but as he involved himself more deeply in business, they had drifted apart and now he had his women and she her horses, her daylong trips into the valley where she would rendezvous with lovers, men and women both, and Rosacher’s relationship with her had become a convenience, held together by a shred of reflex intimacy that disguised their fundamental indifference to one another—they were partners (Ludie had helped finance the early stages of the business) and they trusted each other in that way, but trust no longer extended into the emotional realm. Rosacher felt himself slipping into a suit of reactions that accommodated this state of affairs, yet he also regretted that things had reached this pass and struggled to sustain a nostalgic view of her.
She held out the papers to him. “Arthur’s downstairs.”
Rosacher continued to stare.
“It’s the figures you asked for,” she said. “The estimate of next year’s earnings. And the notes for the rest of your presentation.” When he did not take them, she shook the papers at him. “You should look these over before you leave.”
“What are you up to today?” he asked.
A flicker of displeasure—she tossed the papers onto an easy chair. “I’m going for a ride.”
“I’d like to see you this evening.”
“See me?”
“Spend some time with you.”
“I don’t…”
“I hoped we might dine together.”
She folded her arms. “Why? What do you want?”
“Not much. A few hours of your company.”
She started to speak, hesitated, and said stiffly, “If you’ve a problem with the way I’ve been handling the books, I want to hear it now.”
“I want to see you. Can that be so difficult to comprehend? My God! How long has it been since we spent an evening together?”
“I haven’t kept track.”
“Nor I…but it must be months.”
She shrugged. “If you say so.” Then, after a pause: “Very well. I’ll cancel my plans.”
That comment touched off yet another rush of confusing memories, these relating to his presentation, and Rosacher experienced a flash of unease—there were so many details to sort through. “Perhaps I should postpone the presentation. We have a lot to talk about.”
“Are you mad? We’ve been working toward this for nearly five years. Don’t worry. They may have summoned you to receive their reprimand, but you’ll have them scrambling to see which one of them can be your best friend before the hour’s out.”
She said this last harshly, as if it were an indictment, and then went to a closet, selected a white suit and laid it out on the bed. She adopted a thoughtful pose. “Perhaps your green shirt. It’ll strike a flamboyant note. That’s the image you want to present. Those stodgy old men will see you dressed like a parrot, dismissive of their conservative conventions, and they’ll admire you for it. They’ll disapprove of you at first, of course. But they’ll come to recognize that you’re establishing your independence from them. They’ll view your disrespect as the byproduct of a bold personal style, and they’ll respect that in you…so long as you make it worth their while.”
She had grown angry as she spoke or, better said, she had let slip her stoic mask and shown him her normal level of resentment.
“Ludie,” he said helplessly.
“I’ll be in my quarters at eight o’clock,” she said, going to the door. “Try to be punctual.”
After she had gone he wondered if it was possible to restore the relationship. The council summons pressed in on him—he recalled its importance and his mind swarmed with details. He selected a green silk shirt from the closet and laid it beside the suit in order to gauge the effect, concluding that Ludie had been accurate in her judgment. It struck precisely the right note.
+
Arthur Honeyman, the gaunt giant who had broken into Rosacher’s apartment and assaulted him, had changed his outward aspect to a far greater degree than had Rosacher, though Arthur’s transformation was by way of a refinement. Honeyman dressed well these days, given to collarless shirts and embroidered satin jackets that lent him a dandified air ill-suited to his rough-hewn features and bony frame. He smiled incessantly in order to show off his false teeth. They were not white but, thanks to jade inlays, were decorated so as to resemble moss-covered rocks—when he opened his mouth, they gave the impression that you were looking into a forbidding cavern. On the day he had hired Arthur, sitting at the desk in his office, a room adjoining his old apartments, Rosacher made new teeth a condition of his employment.
