The chandelier hummed overhead.
Joyce sat across from Franz. The smile she gave him was smaller now, less performance and more person, the smile of someone who had been running interference for two hours and was finally allowed to stop.
Yosef was still at the sideboard with two fingers of the gifted whiskey. He had not moved back to the table. Julian stayed in his chair, and Gio sat at the far end, watching.
The door to the study was closed down the hall. No sound came through it. No sound came from anywhere except the hedges scraping the windows and the low electric buzz of the light.
"She will be fine in there," Joyce said.
"I know," Franz said.
She looked at him, really looked, not with the charming curiosity from lunch.
"Does it bother you? Being left out here."
"No."
"Some men find that hard. When the woman they married does not need them in the room."
