"She was very beautiful. I don't mean beautiful like Eunice but really beautiful. You know. From the inside as well as the outside. And she was--well, I knew nothing could go wrong as long as she was there. I mean no matter what happened as long as she was there it would be all right. Once when we were spending the summer in Goshen the nearest house to us burned down in the middle of the night and it was terrible. But before any of the children had time to be frightened or anything mother had them in our kitchen all in their nightclothes and was feeding them cocoa and sandwiches and making them all laugh and they stayed with us the rest of the summer while the house was being rebuilt. I was only five then but I remember the way they all stopped being frightened the night of the fire just because mother was there and they knew she'd make everything all right. And always every night she told me a story before I went to sleep. And in the morning she'd come in to wake me and her hair would be all around her like a cape. Father painted her and painted her. She was about the only grown person he ever painted. He's never painted Eunice. Only sketches. I'll show you a picture of her tomorrow. Mother, I mean. And she used to laugh all the time and everything was fun. Even the times I was sick and had to be in bed. She made that fun, too. And I had a governess but when I remember it seems to me mother was with me most of the time and we used to go to plays together and to La Bohéme and Traviata at the opera." Paul didn't say anything and Flip looked over in the moonlight and there he was, sound asleep, his mouth a tiny bit open. She crawled out from under the covers and shook him gently. "Paul. Paul. You'd better wake up and go to bed." He rolled over sleepily and slid off the bed and stood there swaying for a moment as though he were still asleep. "Good night Flip. Thank you," he said softly, and crossed the hall to his room. Flip clambered back under the covers and put her head down and hardly had time to draw the covers about her and rub her feet against the slippery warmth of the hot water bottle before she, too, was asleep. 6 A few days after the holidays began Flip and Paul were skiing alone. Madame Perceval had gone to spend the day with some friends in Ouchy, and Monsieur Laurens was deep in his book. Flip and Paul, their skis over their shoulders, had climbed a good distance up the mountain and were preparing to ski down when a voice behind them called, "Paul." They turned around and Flip saw the dark man with the too-brilliant black eyes. "Paul," he said again. Paul stared at him blankly. "Don't you know me?" he asked. "No," Paul said. "Alain, are you sure you don't know me?" "What do you mean?" Paul said. "My name is Paul Laurens. What do you mean?" "Your name is Alain." The man took a step towards them and Paul pushed Flip back a little. "Your name is Alain Berda. Are you sure you don't know me?"