"Margaret, dearest, I might even be serious if I thought that it would make you happy."
"Good heavens, it's one, and I am lunching at one."
"Margaret, promise never to mislay our intimacy again."
"I promise."
That evening there was a knock at the door.
"Monsieur a fait dire que c'était un bouquet pour Madame."
An immense bunch of balloons followed him into the room.
"For Margaret who—in spite of everything, because of everything—understands everything."
"Matthew," she wrote, "how young you make me."
And then she murmured to herself: