I told her I was feeling a little ill, I believed I was catching cold. “Oh, no! How shocking! I won’t have you taking cold.” She thrust a plate of lobster en mayonnaise in front of the Baron and said, “Try this, Alexy, and give me your honest opinion. Will you excuse me for a moment?” And taking me by the arm, she led me into the hall and towards the yellow sofa.

“Now!” she said, adjusting the camellias at my shoulder to her liking. “Now tell me why you’re playing such a trick on me.”

“But it’s no trick, Countess. Really, I am all chills and fever.”

“Oh, adorable monster! But I’ll keep your secret. Is he gifted? Is he a gentleman? Darling, don’t think I’m prying, but I love you! I could not bear it if my Euphrysone weren’t treated well!”

Anxious to escape and afraid that if she kept me any longer I would blurt out the whole story of my wounded dignity, I put my cape around my shoulders and laughed, “He, Countess, is only Dostoievsky whom I shall read when I’ve taken an aspirin for my cold.”

“Seriously,” she said looking, indeed, very serious, “I am only thinking how Lucy Pride would feel about it. You know her anti-Semitism. But you do as you like, my dear pet! I will let you go only if you promise to be amused!”

“Oh, I do promise!” I assured her and I extended my hand in farewell, wishing to end this baffling dialogue. The Countess got up, kissed me, and went to the stairs. “How stupid of me! I forgot to tell you that he’s waiting in the library.”

I had known, even before I opened the door, that I would find Nathan Kadish in the library. He was standing in the lamplight, his birthmark towards me.

“Well,” he said, “aren’t you surprised?”

“Hello, Nathan. I’m glad to see you.”

“I should hope you might be, you poor girl! What you must have been through! Had I only known I would have come to solace you months ago.”

“How did you get in?” I said, amused and pleased that he had not changed.

“It was a very neat coup. I saw you come in here with that St. Bernard—what a moron he looks like—and waited a minute and rang the bell myself. I must say I was ready to give up when I got a gander at that butler. He was tough sledding, but the lady was a pushover.”

I saw that he was going over, with an admiring eye, the details of my attire, and I likewise allowed my look to travel upwards from his feet in muddied white shoes, over his immaculate gray suit and bright red bow tie to his face.