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reputation only. Penelope had barely seen her since her unexpected return from what was supposed to have been a long exile in a western state—for truly, what was there to say?
    “She is very well.” Penelope began to regain her composure, and even as she spoke reminded herself that she really would have to make a show of seeing Elizabeth, one that the papers took note of, and soon. “But it is still early for her to be going out. After her trauma. You understand, of course.”
    “Of course.” Leland bowed his head, appearing almost embarrassed for having asked after a girl who had gone unaccounted for for over two months, and who might indeed have suffered any number of grave injustices. But before he could further anyone’s discomfort, he succumbed to the calls of his fellow driving enthusiasts, and excused himself. “Please do enjoy,” he said as he slipped into the crowd.
    Penelope did not look after her host as he left. She stared straight ahead and reminded herself what a lucky thing it was that he was not a gossip and that he wouldn’t be searching for signs that Mrs. Henry Schoonmaker’s marriage or friendships were not what they seemed. For a moment she reflected on how to avoid such a mistake again, and then she turned toward Henry.
    His dark eyes were focused in the direction of the huge windows and the night scene they held, and they looked less glassy than before. There was something almost like clarity in his face when he turned toward his wife, and when he spoke, it was deliberately.
    “Promise me,” he said, meeting her gaze, “that if someone brings up the Hollands again you’ll take me home.”
     
    The new dressing room on the second floor of the Schoonmaker mansion, which had until recently held Henry’s collection of unread first editions, was dark. Once she had been undressed, Penelope sent her maid away, instructing the girl to shut off all but one of the lights before she left. Penelope stood, looking into her full-length triptych mirror with the polished cherrywood frame, and let her head rest back on her neck. It was only in September that her family had moved into its Fifth Avenue mansion, an event that was widely understood in the press as a declaration of the Hayeses’ presence in society, and now half a year later she was living at an even better address, with an older family, on a more established section of the avenue.
    She let her head sway back and forth, and as she appraised her reflection she thought—as she had thought before—howperfect she and Henry looked together. For they were both tall, both dark-haired. They had the same long limbs and the same haughty posture. There were times when she wondered if they didn’t look like each other, if God in his infinite wisdom had not created them out of the same impeccable stuff so that they could recognize each other when they met. She was not wearing any of her lingerie, which was very fine and which had been handmade in France. She was wearing stockings and a black shirtwaist and nothing else. From the next room she could hear Henry’s rising, whistling breath, and hoped that he was not snoring, that he had not fallen asleep.
    She did not wear lingerie, because lingerie had already failed. What she wore now had a special significance for her—for both of them. She had answered the door wearing the same thing last June, the first time she invited Henry to the Waldorf-Astoria, where she and her family had lived while their house was being constructed. He hadn’t left until the following morning, by which time she had already imagined herself as his bride.
    She put out the last light, and stepped past the aubergine damask–covered screen and into her bedroom. It had been Henry’s room originally, but she had banished the black leather club chairs and hunting trophies to the basement when she moved in. The broad, simple tables, which he had vaguely protested were from Great Britain and possessed historicalsignificance, had