CHAPTER 20

east.

You can't stop seeing an old friend because of rumors, and on the other hand, I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.

Their interest touched me and made them seem less distantly rich—nevertheless, I was

confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that Lily should rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently, there were no such intentions in her mind.

As for Max, the fact that he "had some woman in New York" was really less surprising than that he had been unsettled by a book. Something was causing him to

nibble at the edge of stale ideas, as if his robust physical egotism no longer nourished his imperious heart.

By now, it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where

new red gas pumps sat in pools of light. When I reached my estate at West Egg, I parked the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard.

The wind had died down, leaving a loud, bright night with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth filled the frogs with life.

The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away, a figure had emerged from the

shadow of my neighbor's mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets, gazing at the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the

secure position of his feet on the lawn suggested that it was Alex Sterling himself, out to determine his share of our local heavens.

I decided to call to him. Casey had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn't call to him, for he gave