“A very calm one, I’m sure.”

“People actually turned in their chairs and looked around. It was that drastic.”

Her blue eyes widened in her own calm amazement. “Why would it sell for so much?”

“It’s a complete mystery.” He stared out the window at the street. “Poof.”

“What?”

“A lifetime. Three hours and it’s gone.”

“Selling off all his things?”

“His world. Everything he was, all scattered.” With his hands behind his head, the space on his desk he’d cleared for his elbow was empty now, abandoned.

“Life is more than what you own,” Dorothy said. Her own desk was perfectly ordered, with a computer screen, a neat pile of papers, and two photographs. She put her elbows on the empty middle and looked at him.

“Oh, I know,” Charles said. “But that’s what’s left at the end.”

“He was an important person, wasn’t he?”

“He was a bureaucrat in the Justice Department. Yes, he was important.” He glanced at the newspaper. The first page was rancor in Congress, and the president refusing to cooperate, and officials denying any wrongdoing. “What would the Post print if there were no scandals?”

“Hollywood divorces, like everyone else.”

“I guess that would be worse. Every story on the front page is about someone’s failing.”

The sun was overhead, in the west, full on the townhouses across the street. The shadow of his own building was creeping toward them.

He read a paragraph. “This poor man,” he said. “A highly respected federal judge. Ten years on the bench. Then it comes out that he cheated on his exams back in law school. Over thirty years ago! First he was forced to resign, and now he’s being disbarred.”

“It does seem severe.”

“There is more to life than what you own. There’s also what you’ve done wrong.”