Julie raised one eyebrow, and Farrell recalled a long, tipsily innocent spring night she had spent in trying to teach him to do that. “Well, somebody’s been feeding a cat on Brendan Way for the last two years.” Farrell began an indignant growl, but she interrupted him calmly. “I’m no good about letters, you know that. Anyway, I knew you’d show sooner or later. One of us always conjures up the other.”

He stood peering at her, frowning with the effort of relearning her face, as students ambled by, pushing bicycles and laughing through sandwiches. A dishy, merry, barn-owl face, every feature too large for conventional Western beauty, except the nose, which was too small. But her skin remained as clear and translucent as white wine, and the bones beneath were, at thirty, beginning to keep their old promise of pride and steadfastness. Her face has secrets now, like Ben’s face. I wonder if mine does. Aloud he said, “Nothing changes. You still look like an Eskimo.”

“You still haven’t seen one.” He realized that he had never held her this long before; usually, no matter how joyous the welcome, they let go quickly and stepped away, a single precise pace. This time, both of them trusted their full weight to the strength of the awkward clasp, leaning apart but keeping firm hold. They might have been children playing a street game, swinging each other inside a circle chalked on the sidewalk.

“You didn’t marry old what’s-his-face,” he said. “Alain, the archaeologist.”

Julie giggled. “He was a paleoethnologist. Still is, I guess, back in Geneva. No, I didn’t marry him. Almost, though.”

“I liked him.” Farrell said.

“Oh, he liked you,” Julie said. “They always do. You’re such a nice fellow. They think you’re not a threat, and you know they’re not.”

A couple of fraternity boys were shouting at them from a second-floor window, “Action! We want some action down there!” The night faces were coming on duty now, floating down toward Parnell like Portuguese men-of-war.