By the age of twenty-three, however, I took a less romantic view of sexual relations, and a greater interest in what lay underneath the skin of another person. Chance placed Herbert next to me at a dinner party one evening, where I discovered that Rosie Hudson’s lascivious father spoke four languages, collected Tintoretto, and had trained as an architect before his own chance encounter—those peculiar, dazzling points of inflection that determine our fate—led to the creation of the Herbert Hudson Modeling Agency. Then he said enough about him, what about me. I told him about Rome, about my brief spell as a fashion model—he laughed and said I must have caused a real sensation among his Italian colleagues—and about the war and my opinions on it. He walked me home through the New York drizzle. He was between wives at the moment, he told me, and I said I hoped he didn’t mean to audition me for the role, because I wasn’t cut out to be anybody’s wife. He laughed some more and said he couldn’t afford me, anyway, and because I happened to stand at a crossroads in my life, because I was sick and tired of gorgeous, faithless young men, I agreed to go to dinner with him the following Saturday. We went out to dinner eight times before we slept together, which was probably a record for me if I bothered to count, but it was not until after we drifted apart that he offered me a job as his secretary.

So whatever people might say about me—and they say a lot—I haven’t been sleeping with my boss, at least not since he became my boss. And if I feel myself entitled to a glass of his private reserve from time to time—why, it’s only because I am.

I SLING DOWN THE scotch and clean the glass myself. By the time I’m done with all the housekeeping, I’ve got twenty-eight minutes to make my way to the Fifth Avenue apartment of my aunt Vivian and uncle Charlie, and I’m unlikely to find a taxi at this hour. I should skedaddle right out the door, but I don’t. I leave Herbert’s office and lock the door behind me—walk to my desk to retrieve my pocketbook from the lower right-hand drawer—but I don’t continue straight to the glass doors that open to the elevator lobby.