Still, they were a sparkling couple; at least, that was how they appeared to friends and business colleagues. At times Nora’s practicality or James’s ability to detach shored them up. She was not the usual corporate wife—a bit more exuberant, as likely to chat with a waitress as with a distinguished guest—but she was young and slender, almost pixie-ish, and laughed easily and spoke more-than-passable French. James had a quick mind, a ready smile, a steady manner that inspired trust and was for the most part genuine. Sandy-haired, long-legged, a soft grit in his voice. They were good dancers, good at parties. They seemed to be in love, and were, in fact, in love, or what they took to be love. They both had mild flirtations—public, innocuous—within their social circle, playing at other pairings. Of course, after Katy there were those moments when Nora would catch herself glancing at the peripheries of her life, at the lives of unmarried friends; and sometimes she met them for walks, and later, with Molly in her stroller, visited Lydia in Cambridge, those casual meetings she might neglect to mention to James. No infidelity, she thought (and then, for a time, stopped thinking). For James there were the office flirtations, the passing attraction to the VP’s assistant, lunches with the lively young associate who insisted on buying pints. A now-and-then pick-me-up. Not too often. No one sleeping with anyone else. Just an occasional kiss on the cheek, a momentary glimpse of another life.