The red glow from the cove had died out of the sky. The two in the bed knew each other as old people know the partners with whom they have shared the same bed for many years, and they needed to say no more. The things left unsaid they both felt deeply, and with a sigh they fell back on the well stuffed pillows. Anita put out the remaining candles with a long snuffer, and in the smell of scented candlewick, the comforting awareness of each other's bodies, the retained pattern of dancers and guests remembered, their minds grew numb and then empty of images. They slept -- Mynheer with a marvelously high-pitched snoring, the damn seahorse ivory teeth watching him from a bedside table.

In the ballroom below, the dark had given way to moonlight coming in through the bank of French windows. It was a delayed moon, but now the sky had cleared of scudding black and the stars sugared the silver-gray sky. Martha Schuyler, old, slow, careful of foot, came down the great staircase, dressed in her best lace-drawn black silk, her jeweled shoe buckles held forward.

``Well, I'm here at last,'' she said, addressing the old portraits on the walls. ``I don't hear the music. I am getting deaf, I must admit it.''

She came to the ballroom and stood on the two carpeted steps that led down to it. ``Where is everyone? I say, where is everyone? Peter, you lummox, you've forgot to order the musicians.''