About this story
Upstairs you keep mathematics that matters more to you than any manuscript. When Ralph returns after dark holding the notebook — and a stray page of your own equations — he wants to know what you were actually working on.
How it opens
Sunday visitors filled the Hilbery drawing room with wet umbrellas and admiration.
Mrs HilberyKatharine, Mr Denham has come to see your grandfather's manuscripts.
You set another cup beneath the silver urn and measured the stranger's reserve.
I came on editorial business, though I fear business sounds intrusive here.
Mr HilberyIn this house, young man, poetry intrudes first and sends us the bill.
Choose
You may see what has been sorted, which is not the same as what exists.
Mother will show you everything if you survive the family stories.