Juliana was uncertain how to reply. She hadn’t given much thought to an engagement ring until Mr. Kechel had brought up the subject, and now she’d begun to anticipate a ring … Mr. Kechel was sounding jaunty, ebullient at eleven a.m. Juliana wondered if the older man had had his first drink of the day. His voice was as smooth as the smoothest whiskey poured over ice, and there was no hint of the preposterous nature of what he was suggesting.

When Juliana offered the weak excuse of having no way to get downtown except a city bus, Mr. Kechel arranged for a taxi to pick her up at her residence and bring her to the Commodore, where she was to meet him, not in the lobby, but in his room on the fourth floor. “In your room? Really?”—Juliana laughed at the man’s effrontery. “I’ll leave the door ajar,” Kechel said, “just in case.” Just in case—what? Juliana had no intention of going to Kechel’s room, she would call him from the lobby. She dressed carefully in a white linen jacket, red-striped scarf, pressed dark slacks, and good sandals. She did not look like a college girl, rather more a young professional woman or a model. Brushed her chestnut hair until it shone and bristled about her head with static electricity.

Juliana was curious about what would happen between her and Kechel. She did not really believe that anything would happen. Through their strained dinner Kechel had cast bemused glances at her, and she’d tried to ignore the intensity and hungry intimacy of his gaze. He’d overridden her choice of filet of sole and insisted that she order filet mignon—“A women’s meat.”

He’d all but cut pieces of the meat for her on her plate. Several times he’d called her “Princess.” He’d ordered a second glass of wine for her, over her protests. (Juliana did not drink this second glass. Pointedly.) At the table with them, Gordon sat silent, sullen, eating his bland turkey dinner and affecting an air of indifference, unconcern; on the table beside him he’d set his cell phone, which was registering notifications, at which he did little more than glance.

Afterward Juliana asked Gordon why had he ignored her at dinner, and Gordon said she’d seemed to be enjoying herself pretty much. Why’d she require him?

“Your father talked to me, mostly. I had no choice. But you didn’t talk to either of us. Why was that?”

But all Gordon could do was repeat, Juliana had seemed to be enjoying herself pretty much. He hadn’t wanted to interrupt.

This new edge to her fiancé. Juliana felt a stab of dismay, dislike.

Next day, Juliana arrived at the Commodore Hotel in the early afternoon and, as Mr. Kechel had suggested, called his room from a phone in the lobby. After three rings Kechel answered and told Juliana in his bright affable voice—“Come right up, dear! I’ve been waiting.”

Juliana demurred. Why didn’t he come down to meet her.