568
PARTISAN REVIEW
"God," said Henry, "I'm so sorry, I just can't keep awake." To
Jody, "Sorry sweetie, I just can't .. . " And giving her a comradely
hug and a kiss on her mouth, he waved at them and was off upstairs.
Sebastian and J ody did not look at each other. After coffee,
they went on playing Scrabble, both running up enormous scores
and claiming that the other cheated, and laughing a lot. Since they
had slept so long that afternoon, it was after midnight when Sebas–
tianjoined Angela at one end of the house, and Jody joined Henry at
the other. Both Angela and Henry were soundly asleep, and when
Sebastian woke well after nine on Sunday morning he was alone in
the room, while Jody, coming down in a housecoat, found Henry
and Angela drinking coffee.
It
appeared they had been for a long
walk. They planned to take Connie, already up and apparently
quite well again , to spend the day with friends who lived not half a
mile away . Would Sebastian and Jody make themselves breakfast?
They did, and what Jody was not saying seemed to ftll not only the
kitchen , but the sitting room, when they went into it .
But back came Angela and Henry , full of animation, sug–
gesting a good long walk: no need to bother about lunch, because
they were all invited to lunch where Connie was. Off they went, the
four of them, in their proper couples now, Henry and Jody in front ,
swinging their hands together and laughing, and Sebastian and
Angela behind , with enough distance between the two pairs for love
talk to be exchanged, if this were to occur. But if this did happen, it
was not for long, because after a certain short halt to admire a view
of high rolling hills with clouds scudding smartly across them, then
Angela and Jody made the pair who came behind, a good way after
the energetically striding men . That Angela and Jody should at last
become friends was one of the reasons for this perilous (as J ody saw
it) weekend, and what they talked about was their children . Angela
was generally worried about Connie. The child had been bright and
brave about the separation and then the divorce of her parents , but it
had all been going on for four vital years, and while she and Henry
had done everything-"Everything we possibly could," wailed
Angela into the wind , she felt that Connie was taking it all very
hard , though Henry thought she exaggerated . Here Jody told how
bad she felt over Stephen, her ten-year-old. While she had remained
married to Marcus , Stephen's father, she had been able to postpone
the child being sent to boarding school in the English way , but with
the divorce , her influence ceased. Stephen had been banished with
all the heartlessness of his people to a school his father insisted on . In
