“Brill? Analysis is a wonderful thing. Yes, that might help.” He broke off and waved violently. “There’s Lucy now. Lucy! Confound these drums. There, she’s coming over.” He settled back in relief. He was never at his best with a surrounding audience of less than three or four. He loved people and more people; the more the better. There was no limit to his capacity for company; if he should ever have to live completely alone he would go mad. The frantic boredom that had possessed him with Mary grew more peaceful; slowly and completely died as he watched Lucy pushing a way toward the ladder that leant against their roof. She was followed by her daughter Phyllis and her daughter Phyllis’ friend Janie Peabody. Good! Soon there would be activity and noise on the roof around him, and other people would look up to the chattering crowd and say to each other, “That’s Bob Stuart.” The three women climbed the ladder carefully, with upheld skirts and cautious feeling of the toes. “Ah-h-h, Lucy,” said Bob lovingly, lending a hand at the last rung. “Phyllis. Miss Peabody. Lucy darling, we were just talking about you. You are to tell Mrs. Lennard everything you know about the California school. She wants to find a school for Blake—you know, Blake.” “My school?” Lucy sat down cross-legged on the roof and lit a cigarette. “Certainly. Tell me if you want it and I’ll write you a letter tonight. I should think it would be just the thing for you. Phyllis was such a problem before I sent her there. They always are difficult at a certain age, don’t you think?” She turned and flicked an ash at Phyllis, who ignored her by chatting with Janie. The singing fell to an abrupt end and in the silence shuffling feet were heard. Over an array of backs, fidgeting sweaty backs, they saw green branches jogging, being carried out of the plaza. A fluttering wisp of red shirt moved in the same direction, seen in little jerks as it passed between two fat ladies in khaki hats. “Oh,” cried Mary, “it’s over, isn’t it? I haven’t really seen anything of it.” “No, no,” Bob said soothingly. “They start again in a minute. What was all that at your school about psychoanalysis, Lucy? Tell her about it.” “Won’t she be bored? I always forget the other people may want to watch the dance. It seems impossible that anyone here could be seeing it for the first time. How many times have we seen it, Bob?” “Oh, I couldn’t say. It’s nothing to what it used to be. I remember a dance at Jemez that I stumbled on by sheer accident. It was in the old days when I was collecting. I was taking a trip to San Ysidro to get a blanket—you could still pick up good things in those days. I was driving with poor old Gertrude and we suddenly turned into the village and there it was. Very shocking.” Lucy leaned forward and ground out her cigarette against a stone. The sun was paling as if the air had grown suddenly thick. Behind a high yellow sandy cone back of the town, a black cloud peeped.