He swept his eyes across his fields and forests. His wife pressed his hand.
“My dear,” he said, “do you object to my lighting a cigar?”
When the sixteenth came round there was no dancing. Mynheer Mopius sat in a darkened room.
Yes, Mevrouw Mopius had provokingly died. At the last moment she resolved to take her unfinished patriarchs down into the grave with her, but she left her collection of samples to Ursula, because Ursula had shown some appreciation of her work.
“‘IT SEEMS TOO CRUEL TO DIE AND LEAVE IT ALL’”