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When the weather was dark and cloudy, Evelyn found it impossible to work. She needed the sun to mellow her mood to the right point for creativity. She had reached a stage in her life where she no longer struggled with her tasks; she worked with a confidence and ease that came naturally when she was in the right frame of mind. Lacking ambition and not striving for accomplishment, she drew satisfaction from the work itself.

On rainy or melancholy days, Evelyn sought the company of friends she had made at Grand Isle. Otherwise, she stayed indoors and nursed a mood that had become too familiar for her comfort and peace of mind. It wasn’t despair, but it felt as if life was passing by, leaving its promises broken and unfulfilled. Yet, on other days, she found herself hopeful, deceived by fresh promises that her youth still held.

One bright afternoon, Ace Hamilton and Mrs. Highcamp called for her in Hamilton’s drag. Mrs. Highcamp was a worldly but unaffected, intelligent, slim, tall blonde woman in her forties, with an indifferent manner and blue eyes that stared. She had a daughter who served as a pretext for her to cultivate the society of young men of fashion, like Ace Hamilton. He was a familiar figure at the racecourse, the opera, and fashionable clubs. His eyes always held a perpetual smile that could cheer anyone who met his gaze and listened to his good-humored voice. His manner was quiet, occasionally insolent. He possessed a good figure and a pleasing face, not overburdened with depth of thought or feeling, and his dress was that of a conventional man of fashion.

Hamilton admired Evelyn extravagantly after meeting her at the races with her father. Although he had met her before on other occasions, she had seemed unapproachable until that day. It was at his instigation that Mrs. Highcamp invited Evelyn to join them at the Jockey Club to witness the turf event of the season.

There were few at the track who knew horses as well as Evelyn, and none who knew them better. She sat between her two companions with an air of authority. She laughed at Hamilton’s pretensions and lamented Mrs. Highcamp’s ignorance. The racehorse was a friend and intimate associate of her childhood. The atmosphere of the stables and the breath of the bluegrass paddock revived memories and lingered in her nostrils. She spoke like her father as the sleek geldings ambled in review before them. She played for high stakes, and fortune favored her. The excitement of the game flamed in her cheeks and eyes, getting into her blood and brain like an intoxicant. People turned to look at her, and more than one listened attentively, hoping to secure the ever-desired “tip.” Hamilton, caught up in the excitement, was drawn to Evelyn like a magnet. Mrs. Highcamp, as usual, remained unmoved, with her indifferent stare and uplifted eyebrows.

Afterward, Evelyn stayed for dinner with Mrs. Highcamp, who urged her to do so. Hamilton also remained and sent away his drag. The dinner was quiet and uninteresting, save for Hamilton’s cheerful efforts to enliven things. Mrs. Highcamp lamented her daughter’s absence from the races and tried to convey what she had missed by attending a “Dante reading” instead. The girl held a geranium leaf up to her nose, saying nothing, but looking knowing and noncommittal. Mr. Highcamp was a plain, bald-headed man who only talked under compulsion. He was unresponsive, while Mrs. Highcamp showed delicate courtesy and consideration toward him, addressing most of her conversation to him at the table.

After dinner, they sat in the library and read the evening papers together under the droplight, while the younger people went into the nearby drawing room and talked. Miss Highcamp played selections from Grieg on the piano, capturing all of the composer’s coldness but none of his poetry. As Evelyn listened, she couldn’t help wondering if she had lost her taste for music.

When it was time to go home, Mr. Highcamp made a half-hearted offer to escort her, looking down at his slippered feet with concern. Hamilton took her home instead. The car ride was long, and it was late when they reached Esplanade Street. Hamilton asked if he could come in for a moment to light his cigarette, claiming his match safe was empty. He filled his match safe but didn’t light his cigarette until he left, after Evelyn agreed to go to the races with him again.

Evelyn was neither tired nor sleepy. She was hungry, for the Highcamp dinner, though of excellent quality, had lacked abundance. She rummaged in the larder and found a slice of Gruyere and some crackers. She opened a bottle of beer from the icebox. Evelyn felt restless and excited. She hummed a fantastic tune as she poked at the wood embers on the hearth and munched on a cracker.

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Evelyn felt a restless longing for something to happen—anything. She regretted not convincing Hamilton to stay longer to discuss the horses. She counted her winnings but found no satisfaction. With nothing else to do, she went to bed, tossing and turning in a monotonous agitation.

In the middle of the night, she realized she had forgotten to write her regular letter to her husband. Deciding to write it the next day, she lay awake composing a letter in her mind that bore no resemblance to the one she eventually penned. When the maid woke her in the morning, Evelyn had been dreaming of Mr. Highcamp playing the piano at the entrance of a music store on Canal Street, while his wife said to Ace Hamilton, as they boarded an Esplanade Street car, “What a pity that so much talent has been neglected! But I must go.”

A few days later, Ace Hamilton called for Evelyn in his drag again, but this time, Mrs. Highcamp was not with him. He mentioned they would pick her up, but she hadn’t been informed and wasn’t home. Her daughter was just leaving for a Folk Lore Society meeting and regretted she couldn’t join them. Hamilton looked perplexed and asked Evelyn if there was anyone else she wanted to invite.

Evelyn didn’t bother searching for any of her fashionable acquaintances from whom she had distanced herself. She thought of Madame Rogers, but knew her friend rarely left the house except for a nightly walk with her husband. Mademoiselle Reisz would have laughed at the idea, and though Madame Williams might have enjoyed the outing, Evelyn didn’t want her company. So, she and Hamilton went alone.

The afternoon proved intensely interesting. The excitement returned, warming her like a remittent fever. Her conversation with Hamilton grew familiar and confidential. It was effortless to become intimate with him; his manner invited easy confidence. He always endeavored to bypass the preliminary stages of acquaintance with engaging women.

Hamilton stayed for dinner, and afterward, they sat by the wood fire, laughing and talking. Before long, he was telling her how different life could have been if he had met her years earlier. With ingenuous frankness, he spoke of his wild youth and impulsively rolled up his sleeve to show a saber scar from a duel in Paris when he was nineteen. Evelyn touched his hand as she examined the red scar on his wrist. Her fingers closed spasmodically around his hand, her nails pressing into his palm.

She quickly stood and walked toward the mantel. “The sight of a wound or scar always agitates and sickens me,” she said. “I shouldn’t have looked at it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, following her. “It never occurred to me it might be repulsive.”

He stood close, and the boldness in his eyes both repelled her old self and stirred her awakening sensuousness. He saw enough in her expression to take her hand and hold it as he said his lingering good night.

“Will you go to the races again?” he asked.

“No,” she replied. “I’ve had enough of the races. I don’t want to lose all the money I’ve won, and I need to work when the weather is bright, instead of—”

“Yes, work; of course. You promised to show me your work. What morning may I come up to your atelier? Tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Day after?”

“No, no.”

“Oh, please don’t refuse me! I know something of such things. I might help with a stray suggestion or two.”

“No. Good night. Why don’t you go after you have said good night? I don’t like you,” she said in a high, excited pitch, trying to pull her hand away. She felt her words lacked dignity and sincerity, and she knew he sensed it.

“I’m sorry you don’t like me. I’m sorry I offended you. How have I offended you? What have I done? Can’t you forgive me?” Hamilton pleaded, bending down to press his lips upon her hand, as if he wished never to withdraw them.

“Mr. Hamilton,” Evelyn complained, her voice trembling with the strain of the day’s excitement, “I’m greatly upset. I’m not myself. My manner must have misled you. Please, I wish you to go.” Her tone was flat, almost mechanical.

He took his hat from the table, his eyes lingering on the dying fire. For a moment, he stood in contemplative silence.

“Your manner has not misled me, Mrs. McPherson,” he said finally. “My own emotions have done that. I couldn’t help it. When I’m near you, how could I help it? Don’t think anything of it, don’t bother, please. You see, I go when you command me. If you wish me to stay away, I shall do so. But if you let me come back, I—oh! you will let me come back?”

He cast one appealing glance at her, but she remained silent, her expression unyielding. Hamilton’s sincerity often deceived even himself.

Evelyn didn’t ponder whether his feelings were genuine. Once alone, she stared mechanically at the back of her hand, where he had kissed her so warmly. Leaning her head against the mantelpiece, she felt like a woman who, in a moment of passion, is betrayed into an act of infidelity, realizing its significance without fully awakening from its allure. The thought crossed her mind, “What would he think?”

She did not mean her husband. She was thinking of Taylor Williams. Her husband seemed like someone she had married without love as an excuse.

Lighting a candle, Evelyn ascended to her room. Ace Hamilton was nothing to her, yet his presence, his manners, the warmth of his glances, and above all, the touch of his lips on her hand, had acted like a narcotic.

She fell into a languorous sleep, her dreams interwoven with fleeting images and vanishing thoughts.