The dying woman opened her eyes.

Skewered upon her penetrating gray gaze, the speaker paused in mid-syllable, his mouth opening and closing silently. He coughed to cover his confusion, trying to find his momentum again, but it was no use. He sputtered to a stop.

"Absolutely not," said Cornelia Watson. Her voice was quiet, gruff with the fluid that plagued her, as well as with pain.

"We can prolong your life by months!" the doctor said. New medications and techniques are being developed every day. It's insane to turn your back on the chance of living!"

"Living?" Her voice held passion and pain. "Do you call this living? Look at those photographs on the wall, and then turn and look at me. Think what it will be like for me, from now until I die. Look me squarely in the eyes and tell me that I am condemned to live!"

The gray eyes closed as the doctor turned to the wall of photos. All were of the same woman, Cornelia Watson as the Dying Swan, as Odette and Odile in Swan Lake, as the Firebird and dozens of other major roles from the classic repertory, as well as action shots from her own works.

She could see, inside her eyelids, what he saw. She had lived those roles a thousand times. She knew the feeling of the music along her bones, as she made motion of the choreographer's dream. She knew the rush of excitement when a piece of music entered her own mind and body and shaped itself into a dance that only she could envision and express.

She opened her eyes, seeing the round face now turned toward her. His expression, his plump, worried face told her what he was seeing, even though she could watch her own deterioration in the huge mirror on the wall facing her bed. The grossly swollen bulk that had been that lissome body always stared back.

Her niece thought it was sick, having that mirror there. "It's masochism," Lisa had told her. "Pure masochism!"

But Cornelia knew it was only Truth, and she had never been afraid of that. It had been the thing that motivated her muscles and bones as she worked. Truth kept her entire being focused upon her goals, no matter how painful or lonely or complicated her personal life became. If the truth of what she was happened to be that dropsical woman reflected in the glass, then so be it.

She would neither deny nor ignore it.

The doctor's voice overrode her thoughts. "You're still a young woman! Forty-three is barely into middle age, nowadays. Your life is valuable to a lot of people, even if you can't dance any longer. There are other things than dance."

"For other people, perhaps." Her face flamed with anger. "I am a dancer. I have had no other life, even though I always understood that the body would go, at last. I could have taught or continued to choreograph, or both. I could live with that, but now I can't even move without agony.

"I cannot exist without motion. If it brings breathlessness and pain, then I will not persist in clinging to life."

She stared at the doctor. "Dr. Howard, why is it that you are so afraid of dying?"

His round face turned pink with shock. "I see death every y," he protested. "I have no fear of it."

"Not of death. Of dying, yourself, personally. And if you fear it, why is that so?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he polished his bifocals carefully and replaced them on his nose. "You are hysterical. I shall return tomorrow, and we will decide which hospital you prefer."

She gave a great effort and pulled herself up on the pillows. Her heart thudded soggily with the stress, but she ignored it. "I will not be here. I will not see you again. I am going home."

"I cannot agree to that. It could be fatal."

"I am sane, free, and I choose to go home."

He turned even pinker. He waved his hands and his carefully modulated voice grew shrill with protest. She was quite exhausted when he ran down at last, but her intention was unchanged. At last he understood that, without her saying another word. He turned, took his bag, and left the room.

Cornelia lay back against her pillows, which were piled against the head of her bed. To be able just to lie flat without the threat of suffocation seemed to her a blessing that she had never appreciated. Her puffy hand moved to touch the small bell on the table, and its musical note brought Amanda into the room.

"He tired you out, didn't he?" the older woman asked. She moved to straighten the coverlet, plump the pillows, remove all trace of the doctor's presence from the room.

"Told you you were crazy to think of staying out of the hands of the medical people, didn't he? I knew he'd do that. They just can't stand the thought of anybody dying naturally and in their own time."

Cornelia laughed. She was too weary, and it joggled her fluid-filled tissues too much for comfort, but she couldn't help it. In her present condition, if she had some soft-footed, gentle-voiced companion who insisted on soothing her reverently, it would have driven her mad. Amanda, on the contrary, was as bracing as a gust of sleet in the face.

"He had kittens when I said I was going home. He would really have a litter if I had told him where home is." She chuckled, lying back, every muscle limp with exhaustion.

For much of the afternoon she slept. When Amanda brought her tea and milk toast, she woke to find the windows pink with sunset light.

"Call Lucius," she said, stirring her tea with a spoon that had belonged to her grandmother. She felt the holly pattern under the ball of her thumb, and its familiar lines brought her mother sharply into her memory. She had handled any problem she faced with style and decisiveness. Her daughter would do no less.

"You finally going to make your will?" asked Amanda. She was sitting beside the desk, holding her teacup on her knee and thumbing through a magazine. "About time, if you hold to your schedule."

Cornelia nodded. "I wanted to think out just what I want to do before putting it all onto paper. In the morning, will you call Miss Carling and ask her to visit me? I want the paintings back, for a while.

"Assure her that I am not recalling the loan permanently. I just want them while I can enjoy them.

"When I die, most will go to the museum permanently. That is one thing that is going into the will. I do need to study those lovely pieces again ... there has never been time, before now." She set her empty cup on the bedside table and leaned back more deeply into the pillows. Her breath came very short, nowadays.

"The Road to Sainte Angele," she breathed. "Lane Among Pine Trees." She sighed, visualizing the paintings that she had bought all over the world as she toured with her company. Every one depicted a road or a lane, a path or a track or a street, each in its own unique setting in some distant part of the world that she had passed through in a whirl of performances, without being able to afford the time to explore it.

"No sweat," said Amanda. "Want me to call Amos to get the house ready?"

"Yes. Have the electricity reconnected, the propane tank filled, and a phone put in. Eric should be able to help him get that done, and things should be ready by the time I finish my business here and make the trip."

"You're going to fly, the shape you're in?"

Cornelia grinned wickedly at her old friend. "You know me too well, Amanda. I am going to do just that, and if Howard will not give me the go-ahead I know doctors who will. If I die on the way, what the hell? Everything will go to Lisa in good order, except for the bequests."

She would have thought Amanda's grin as wicked as her own, if she hadn't noticed the moisture in the corners of the old woman's eyes. She had been Cornelia's family ever since the days when she had been one of the wardrobe mistresses with the company. When her arthritis became too painful to allow her to sew, Cornelia had hired her as maid and companion, and now she shuddered to think what her present life would be without her.

"I hope you invested your money wisely," she said suddenly.

Amanda looked up. "Got Lucius to handle it for me. He says it'll keep me in style for as long as I'm likely to last. It was good sense for you to give it to me ahead of time, he told me; that way there's no chance of your heirs questioning it, and you know Lisa would.

"Besides, as long as I'm working, it just sits there and draws interest. I'll probably have a little nest-egg to leave my grandson."

Cornelia tried to draw a deep breath, but her fluid-soaked lungs defeated her. She sank deeply into the pillows, tired. So tired. And there was still so much to be done!