“Mrs. Phillips?” I finally asked.

“What?” She didn’t look up, but she didn’t explode either.

“What was your husband doing out there?”

“Getting the dog.”

That seemed a decent enough opener for something more comprehensible, but she obviously didn’t think so. As if having explained all there was to explain, she lapsed back to her silent rocking.

I got up and took off my coat. “Could I have a glass of milk?”

That seemed to do it. She looked up at me as if I’d just walked in. “Milk? Of course. I should have offered.”

She got to her feet and efficiently marched through a set of swinging double doors to the dining room and the kitchen beyond-the perfect hostess skating on ice. I followed her.

The kitchen was enormous, white and dazzling. No appliance was below industrial quality, no pot or pan lacked either a copper bottom or a French-made high-gloss paint job. Knives worthy of a Swift packing plant gleamed along magnetic wall strips, yards of thick unscratched cutting-board counter space stretched in all directions. Just as the front room was pure Family Circle, the kitchen was high-techghtas high Gourmet magazine.

I sat down at an island separating production from consumption. Behind me was the eating area-table, chairs, a sofa, two La-Z-Boys and a TV set; in front, where Mrs. Phillips had set to work, were the makings of the cleanest, most expensive, futuristic greasy spoon I’d ever seen.

She didn’t talk nor did I. By chance, I’d hit on the best possible therapy for her, and I wasn’t about to screw up what dumb luck had handed me. But I was starting to regret I hadn’t ordered breakfast.