Sublime

She walks home in a daze, thinking of the last thing Olivia said to her. “Gifts are fragile. You must never entrust yours to people who might break it.” She doesn’t say who she might be thinking of, and Barbara doesn’t need her to. She has what she needs and doesn’t expect to return to the Harris house again.

“Well, it ain’t his folks paying your bills, I don’t have to be a detective to know that.” Althea puts her hands behind her head and stretches, jutting out a truly mammoth bosom that shades half her desk.

Then the master went, and Quint was alone.’ I followed, but halting a little. ‘Alone?’ ‘Alone with us.’ Then as from a deeper depth, ‘In charge,’ she added. ‘And what became of him?’ She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. ‘He went too,’ she brought out at last.