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“This’s mine,” she said. He knew what she meant. Not her button, but what was written on it.

Or will it be, as always was, too late?

The angry chant of “Too late! Too late!” by Robinson’s supporters momentarily filled the comfortable little sitting room.

It was from a poem, ironically, about forgiveness.

“I don’t understand,” said Ruth, holding up the button. “Why’s my poem on this?”

“Professor Robinson didn’t ask permission to use it?”

“No, of course not. I’d never . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“What is it?”

She’d turned to stare into the fire, her thin, blue-veined hand at her face. Then she got up and returned a minute later with her computer, opening it on her lap.

“Oh, shit.”

“What?” He went over and bent beside her chair. The email was from a D. Schneider and dated a month earlier.

It asked permission to use that one line in a campaign to help raise money for the university’s research into improving health care.

There was a return arrow.

“You replied?”

“I must have.” She went to her sent file. Sure enough, there was her reply.

No fucking way. Sincerely, Ruth Zardo.

“Well, that seems clear.” Armand straightened up. “But they did anyway.”

That might explain, he thought, why both Robinson and Madame Schneider had, despite what Robinson claimed, avoided Ruth all night. It must’ve been pretty uncomfortable when they saw her at the party.

“Professor Robinson says they came from BC specifically to see you. That they’d arranged to meet you at the party.”

“Bullshit.”

“Are you sure?”

“You think I don’t recognize bullshit?”

“I think you get a lot of requests, and it’s possible in a moment of—”

“—madness?”

“—you agreed.”

“To meet someone I’d already said no to? Why would I do that?”

“You might not have realized who they were.”

She sat back and glared at him. “When was the last time I agreed to meet anyone? Especially to talk about my poetry?”

It was a good point.

Ruth hated discussing her work, preferring that it speak for itself. She was also secretly afraid that she could never really explain what she wrote, and why, and would come across as inarticulate and in need of repair.