IN TIME, prosperity, at least relative prosperity, returned. The new management at Studebaker strengthened the company by eliminating weaknesses. They gave up on their unprofitable line of small, economical cars named for Knute Rockne, the football coach at Notre Dame, and sold the Peirce-Arrow company, which Studebaker had owned since 1928. By 1935, Studebakers were selling well again, and the company was turning a profit. ...

ON THE FIRST of July in 1933, Albert Erskine, who had been president of Studebaker when it went into bankruptcy, killed himself. The news sent a shudder through Garth, who imagined, unrealistically, that he might have felt driven to such an act if Herb hadn’t halted his downward slide. Herb and Garth heard the news about Erskine while they were in Boston, picking up a supply of coarse goods from Uncle Ben. ...

     Lorna and Herb sat up with May and listened to the whole horrible tale. “This is the end,” May said. “It really is. I can’t do anything for him, he won’t let me do anything for him, and he won’t do anything for himself. There’s nothing that can be done, nothing.” ...

     May was determined not to give up on Garth, but one frightening visit nearly drove her away from him. She had tried romance as a lure before and failed, but she had run out of ideas and so tried again, hoping that something, anything — a difference in the weather or the phase of the moon — would change her luck. She brought candles and wine and a good dinner to the cottage. She brought her filmiest nightgown. She managed to get Garth out of Nosy’s and into the cottage, and ...

THE YEARS that followed were difficult ones. The Studebaker Motor Company began clawing its way back. The Babbington dealership reopened, for three days a week, with a staff of two: Herb and Old Randolph. Herb was working on straight commission. Garth Castle did not come back. He lived at the beach, avoiding the company of anyone who made him feel that he ought to shake off this setback, pick himself up, dust himself off, get a grip on himself, pull himself together, get back to work — especially May.

AND THEN along came serious trouble: the stock market crash, bank holidays, business failures, unemployment, bread lines, declining Studebaker sales. Garth began letting people go: a mechanic, a salesman, the bookkeeper, two more salesmen, two more mechanics, the janitor, another salesman, until only he and Herb and Old Randolph were left. Old Randolph kept busy keeping old cars running, and Garth filled his time keeping the salesroom and the display cars tidy. Herb pursued potential buyers with undiminished fervor, but fewer and fewer bought. ...

BECAUSE they were doing so well, they turned away from coarse goods, though their respective uncles tried nearly identical arguments to make them change their minds. “HERB, HERB,” said Ben, “you’re making the biggest mistake of your life. You are a mechanical genius, Herb. Will you just listen to me for a minute, please? ...

FOR A WHILE, the nation, the Studebaker Corporation, and Herb and Lorna were doing well. Herb sold Studebakers with the zeal of a fanatic. Because he loved selling for itself, it was a far stronger affection than the money he made could have inspired; it was the kind of affection that people develop for leisure activities, for following a basketball team, tending a garden, or trying to turn a lawn into the lush carpet pictured on bags of grass seed. Added to his love of selling was his fondness for Studebakers, which grew and grew. ...

     As Proust probably says somewhere:

     How surprising we find it that, numbered among the many attendants of Love, we do not always find Understanding, the pervasive understanding which we suppose ought to be a prominent member of the procession of Venus. We suppose, and certainly it seems to us perfectly reasonable so to suppose, that love begets, among the many offspring that we suppose it to beget, Understanding, and, ...

     Herb ran the tips of his fingers over May’s breasts. I shouldn’t do this. I shouldn’t do this. But I want to see her move, I want to see what she does. I want to see how she does it. But Lorna — what will I say to Lorna? May pushed him, nudging him onto his back. “You just lie back,” she said. “I want to do something to you.” I knew it. He flopped onto his back, ready, eager. This is going to be great. Fascinating.