These feelings had been obscure, unformulated until the night the three of them had gone out together and Sabina had drunk a whole bottle of Pernod. She had become violently ill. Jay and Lillian had nursed her. Sabina was almost delirious. She was easily prone to fever and Lillian was alarmed by the way her face seemed to be consumed from within. She stretched out beside her to watch over her. Jay had gone to sleep in the studio.

In the first version of that night, gathered from Sabina's smoky talk and Lillian's evasions. Jay had believed that jealousy of him had sprung between them and separated them. But this was only on the surface. Later Lillian saw another drama.

Both Sabina and Lillian, faced with a woman, realized they felt closeness but not desire. They had kissed, and that was all.

Sabina wanted something of Lillian: her inexperience, her newness, as if she wanted to begin her own life anew. They both wanted intangible things. Impossible to explain to Jay who made everything so simple, and reduced to acts. He could not understand atmosphere, moods, mysteries.

The true bridge of fascination was the recognition that in Sabina lay a dormant Lillian. A Lillian Jay had not been able to awaken, a liberated Lillian. For he had needed the devoted Lillian.

Sabina was a drought of freedom. Every gesture she made, every word she uttered. She was free of faithfulness, loyalty, gratitude, devotion, duties, responsibilities, guilts. Even the roles she played were chosen by herself.

Faced with the culmination of their fantasies of a possible closeness to woman, neither one wanted to go further. They both realized the comedy of their pretences. Something so absurd in their bravado towards all experience, in their arrogance about playing Jay's role. They could not escape their femininity, their woman's role, no matter how difficult or complex.

The story which had filtered out had become wrapped in poetry, myth, and drama. It became more and more difficult to reveal the truth, for it was so much more simple, so much more human. Lillian kept the secret because she felt it would make Jay love Sabina more. Jay thought Sabina loved women and that this would explain her water-tight compartments.

What would Jay have thought of their hesitations, awkwardnesses, their own bewilderment. He might have laughed at them. They had both played roles: Sabina in a theatrical way, with capes, make up, late arrivals, dramatic effects, disappearances, mysteries; Lillian the one dictated by her outward appearance of naturalness and honesty. "From you I expect honesty," said Jay. Everyone knew Sabina was an actress. Everyone believed Lillian sincere.

Lillian loved Sabina's fluidity, because she wanted it for herself. When she thought she was courting a woman, she was courting Sabina's gift for escape from whatever interrupted the course of passion, whatever interfered with life as an adventure.