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participation in the experiment, we get preference and even gifts. Of course, that had nothing to do with my decision to be a part of one of the great moments in science.”
    Rowan could believe that. He was well aware that, with his mother, the need to know always took precedence over everything else. In some ways, she seemed to him a kind of innocent with the sublime faith that the knowers would always use their knowledge sensibly and for good ends.
    It was now five days since they’d talked about it, and he still wasn’t used to the idea. As he sat at his desk, mulling over all the disturbing elements of the situation, he was only dimly aware of the teacher’s voice going on about something. He forced himself out of his reverie as she was saying, “The nineteenth century gave us Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Wagner, and Brahms.”
    There was a breathless lilt to her voice that made him think of a violin playing saltando, bouncing the bow lightly on the strings. Ms. Dupont was an interesting-looking woman, he decided. Some might even call her handsome. She wore her straight black hair parted in the middle and pulled tightly back into a chignon at her neck. Her fair skin and green eyes contrasted with her dark hair, but it was not her coloring but her exotically oriental look that made her seem mysteriously intriguing.
    “The nineteenth century also gave us Dvorak, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, and Puccini. Yet it gave us nothing better than the first movement of Beethoven’s Eroica.” Ms. Dupont’s glance moved over the class and settled on Rowan. “Do you agree, Rowan Hart?”
    He flushed at being singled out, surprised that she remembered his name. This was his first time in class since she’d taken over. He opened his mouth to answer her question with a docile yes, then found himself saying, “I think that’s a matter of opinion.”
    She smiled, and he almost had the feeling he had passed some test. Then she said, “You’re quite right. And can you tell me whose opinion that was?”
    He wanted to say yours, but that was obviously not the answer she was looking for. “I’m afraid I don’t know.”
    “I see.” She paused, her eyes resting on him long enough to make him shift uncomfortably in his seat. Finally she said, “Well, someday I must tell you. For now, I would appreciate it if you would remain a few moments after class.”
    Apparently he had not passed the test. Now he felt thoroughly annoyed with her. Perhaps she didn’t realize the conservatory was a very special school for the musically gifted. Its teachers were not in the habit of doling out punishment, if that’s what she thought she was doing, for something so trivial. He brooded about it until class ended, then stayed in his seat until everyone had left. When he saw her coming toward him, he got up.
    To his surprise, she said, “I’m so happy to meet you, Rowan. Your father is very proud of you and with good reason, I’m sure.” She stood close enough for him to catch her scent. She smelled like a garden, he thought.
    “You’ve met my father?” he asked, knowing full well that, of course, she would have met his father, a department head for stringed instruments as well as orchestra master for the conservatory symphony.
    “Oh, yes, a delightful man. And now I have met his son. And tomorrow evening I will meet the rest of your family. Your father has asked me to dinner.”
    “Oh,” Rowan said, somehow surprised. Yet it was like his father to ask a member, especially a new member, of the faculty to dinner to share the largess that so often fell to his wife. “My father’s a good cook.”
    “Is he? Then I’ll certainly look forward to the evening.”
    So will I, Rowan thought. “See you then,” he said, and hurried on to his next class, feeling, for some reason, better than he’d felt all day.
     

6
     
    Anna had never had any real interest in other people. She had no friends and needed none.
    The members of her family she accepted