“You were kind to come. Take your coat off. Look--I have a cool drink ready for you. You like orange, don’t you?” He sat at a little table, near the window, and sipped the beverage. Opposite, was she. Heavy blinds warded away the heat and the sharp clamor of the city. The room was cool and shaded. Julia sat watching him. She wore a housegown of pongee--the color of parched violets. Her hair stood in coils over her ears. “I am not warm,” she said. “I have stayed in, during the heat.” His eyes had questioned if she, too, was thirsty. “It is deliciously comfortable here.” Her head tossingly measured the room. Quincy did not see it. But he felt its cool, fresh walls and the white wood and the cane furniture. It was a sitting room. Two heavy doors in a dark varnish gave accent to its breezy tidiness. She chatted gaily. Allusions to his abstention from her while he was still at college shafted to him and inflamed him. But she laughed at his excuses. “I am not exacting,” she declared. And then, once more, she was serious. It had been so long, she was not sure now, that she still knew him. What, all this time, had happened to him? His answers showed his discomfort. Julia arose and stood over him. “What is wrong?” she said. Her hand went to his brow. “Why is that ruffled?” And then, with the other hand beneath his chin, she turned his head upward. A veil went over Quincy’s eyes. “Is it my turn,” she spoke softly, “to be kind to you?” And in reply, he wrenched his head from her grasp and bent it so low that she could not see his face. He felt her hands lifting his shoulders. And in this way, he came to his feet. “Big boy, why do you hang your head?” He raised it. In a flash, she lay in his arms. But he did not touch her. “I want you,” he cried and then was silent. Julia stepped away from him. A joy was in her face that he could not mistake. And then, she took his hand. And she seated herself. And somehow, Quincy was at her feet with his head upon her lap. This seemed exquisitely right. Yet, though he thrilled with joy and the near warmth of her body intoxicated him, he sobbed. She held his head and his shoulders as if he needed sustenance until this ecstasy of relief was over. And so he remained, until his eyes were dry and his heart spoke dear within him, like a bell. * * * * * She held him until the morrow. She nursed him and cherished him as if he had been sick. She hid him while the unknowing waiter brought food into the sitting-room. And then, laughing with her joke, she shut out the world once more, which had been permitted to intrude with the staid dress and visage of the lackey, and served him herself.