“ ‘Oh, I have great plans for you,’ he replied. ‘Come up and I shall put them into execution.’

“ ‘Is that cordial?’ I asked. ‘Your voice puts me in doubt. I’m curious to see the place but wouldn’t inconvenience you.’

“ ‘Then come up, by all means. Perhaps tonight is not the night for me to torment you.’

“ ‘Now you surprise me with your agreeable tone,’ I said. I came up the stairs. ‘But is it certain that you do mean to torment me?’

“He stood back, in the bath of light, and at once I saw that he was more definitely a she this evening. She had darkened her lips with red and worked a line of black kohl around each eye to make herself more bewitching. Her gleaming black hair was a raiment. And the actual garments she wore were a simple long-sleeve tunic shirt of red velvet and red velvet pants as featureless and simple. Around her small waist was a belt of onyx cameos, clasped in front, a real prize of a thing, each cameo being some two inches in size.

“She was barefoot, and her feet were beautiful with gold painted nails. Her fingernails were painted gold too.

“ ‘You’re beautiful, my friend,’ I said, feeling wonderful with excitement. ‘Is it permitted to tell you this?’ I bit my tongue before I said, I hadn’t expected to find it so. What I remembered from that long ago night was something harsher and more dreadful.

“She gestured for me to enter the house.

“ ‘Of course it’s permitted,’ she responded in her low voice as I moved past her, which might have done well for a man or a woman, and as she smiled now her face was radiant. ‘Look around your fine house, Little Gentleman,’ she said.

“ ‘Ah, “little,” ’ I quoted it back to her. ‘Why does everyone refer to me as little?’ I asked.

“ ‘No doubt because you’re so very tall,’ she replied amiably, ‘and because your face is so very innocent. I told you once I had a theory about you. My theory has proved correct. You’ve learnt more and you’ve grown to a great height. Both developments are splendid.’

“ ‘Then you approve of me.’

“ ‘How could I not?’ she replied. ‘But take your time. Look around at your handiwork.’

“It was difficult for me to look at anything but her. However, I did as she had asked and found the room stunning. Its white marble floor was brilliantly clean. And the deep green velvet couches I’d purchased from afar were sumptuous, as I’d hoped. The gilded torchères, positioned between the many windows, shone their light up on the outrageous gilded rafters. There were low marble tables before the couches and their accompanying Grecian swan-backed chairs.

“And then there was her desk and her chair, same as they were before, only polished up a bit it seemed.