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been given to the servants. The room was now all white and gold and rococo, and the edges of every piece of furniture curved voluptuously. A waterfall of white and gold brocade descended from the high canopy at the head of the bed, and under it, on the ivory bedspread, lay Henry, with his hat and shoes still on. His hat tipped slightly over his eyes, and his legs were crossed at the ankles.
    “Henry.” Penelope kept her voice soft and rested a hand on her hip. He took a breath and stirred just enough to shift the hat on his head. In a moment it tumbled, softly, onto the plush white carpet.
    “Henry,” she said again. “Henry!”
    He sat up then, his eyes a little wild with surprise. His dark hair had been neatly pomaded to the right earlier in the evening, but it was now sticking up in various places. He pulled at his white tie, which came undone in his hand. For a moment he looked at her, and she felt the old tingling warmth.
    She crossed to him, her high-heeled slippers sinking into the carpet, and sat down on the edge of the bed. She reached up and took hold of his tie, then gently pulled it off. It fell soundlessly to the floor beside his hat, as she let her fingers glide from the point of his chin down his neck and to the first button of his shirt. She had succeeded in undoing one when he pushed away from the plush bed, and rose unsteadily to his feet.
    “Henry?”
    “Good night,” he answered, pausing only to pick up his hat and tie as he walked into the adjoining room, where he sometimes took his tea, and to the black leather sofa with the piles of kilim pillows in its corners.
    Penelope threw herself back against the bed and exhaled hotly, feeling—in her shoulders and all over—an aching for something just the slightest bit beyond her reach. Her disappointment was monstrous and her pulse quick, and she could not stop the fearful thoughts about what might come to pass if the news got out that this was how every night of her short married life had ended.

Four
    We are all eager to catch glimpses of Elizabeth Holland, so lately returned to the realm of the living, but it is like trying to see some especially rare royal. Though her younger sister was seen out at the Leland Bouchard ball last night, the elder Miss Holland remained behind closed doors. Does her mother fear future kidnapping attempts? Have the young lady’s delicate sensibilities been so flattened by the violence she was witness to in the Grand Central Station? Or is there some great secret that the public is being shielded from? We remain curious as ever.
    — FROM CITÉ CHATTER , FRIDAY , FEBRUARY 9, 1900

A FIRE HUMMED IN THE DRAWING ROOM OF THE town house at No. 17 Gramercy Park South, which had provided shelter to three generations of the Holland family. It was easy to hear the snapping of kindling in the flames, because the occupants of that room were uncommonly quiet. They had settled into three of the several somewhat-the-worse-for-wear bergère chairs—which were arranged across the room at seemingly random distances from the hearth—after breakfast. Mrs. Holland sat closest to the warmth in her black crepe dress with the high neck and narrow-buttoned wrists; her elder child, Elizabeth, sat not far off. A book was open in the girl’s lap, but she did not read. Snowden Trapp Cairns, who had been a business associate of the late Mr. Edward Holland and who had so often lately made himself their savior, lounged to her right. A portrait of Elizabeth’s father peered down at them from above the fireplace, with an expression perhaps more skeptical than sage.
    “It looks strange that you weren’t in attendance atMr. Bouchard’s last night.” Mrs. Holland did not look up when she spoke, and the lines around her mouth grew taut. She had been reading the morning papers with her usual fierce attention. Diana had been at the ball—she’d returned after Elizabeth had gone to bed and had not as yet emerged from her room. Their aunt Edith, who