Joseph Nagel slumped forward, head in hands.

“My God,” he groaned.

Elise snapped off the car radio.

“Calm down, Joseph.”

“That’s four straight days since we got here.”

“Joseph, please.”

“What do you think we’re down now? Sixty? Eighty thousand?”

“It’ll come back.”

“We should have sold everything after the first twenty. That would have been an acceptable loss. Given that we were too stupid to sell when we were actually ahead—”

Joseph felt the petulant note in his voice, told himself to shut up, and plunged on:

“I did say we should get out, didn’t I? Frankly, it was irresponsible committing all that money—” shut up, shut up “—not to mention the unseemliness of buying in when you did—”

Oh God . . .

His wife spoke icily: “I didn’t hear you complain when we were ahead.”

“All right, but that’s not the point. The point is—”

“What?”