Chapter 12 details an idyllic life spent at the country home in the Northeast. For Larry, the days have a refreshing regularity:

 I found the days as Sally had described them. We did our hours of constructive work, all of us, from eight to eleven-thirty: Sid in his study, Sally and Charity with their babies and house plans and shopping and village volunteerism, I in the moving shade of the treetops on the guest-house porch, the cook in her kitchen, the nurse girl in the nursery, and God, presumably, in his Heaven (153).

 Swimming, tennis, and general relaxation occupy their days. At dinner, prominent guests visit, and there is vigorous and serious talk. Later, Sally and Larry are introduced to the family. Larry’s professional troubles are on his mind for these introductions, yet he is proud of his nascent literary life of working on his next book: “Perhaps also, in some small way, I was Cinderella to them, as I was to myself. No matter how cold the ashes or grubby the household chores, I lived by the faith that when the time came, the glass slipper would fit my little foot, and that when I needed her the fairy Godmother would pull up in her pumpkin coach” (157).