Monica in her black muslin dress with the fringed hem, long sleeves, a sash tied tight to emphasize her narrow waist—Monica with gold studs in her earlobes and the Moroccan necklace heavy about her neck—looked rather more Bohemian than Sheila Trask herself; and behaved with nearly as much abandon. She wasn’t drunk but she was high: and what of it? The unusual necklace elicited a good deal of admiration from Sheila’s guests, and compliments Monica deflected in Sheila’s direction. (“Tell Sheila,” she said. “It was her gift to me.”) She had brushed her hair until it gleamed; fastened it with a clip; and, inspired, feeling playful, she had pinned a small white orchid the size of a daisy above her left ear, bought that afternoon in Olcottsville. It did her spirit good, Monica had thought, regarding herself critically in her bedroom mirror, to look striking once in a while; to appear as that golden girl of old whose promise and whose good luck had so mysteriously drained away.

Win repeated his question more seriously—was Monica an artist?—how had she and Sheila become acquainted?—and Monica heard herself reply in a vague charming silken voice, for, suddenly, it seemed that she too was caught up in a flirtation. Win was clearly attracted to her; he was alone at the party (unmarried? divorced?); the wine she was drinking rushed wonderfully to her head. (To all the parts of her body, in fact. Warming and consoling. In such delightful secrecy.) Win regarded her with such interest—such flattering interest—it scarcely mattered what Monica said, only the way in which she said it; the intonations she gave to her voice, the smiles she smiled, the movements of her eyes—the old trickery of flirtation, which she had forgotten. (Or was she simply out of practice, Monica wondered, amused.) Others at the table were talking of horses—dear God, at such length, of horses!—and there was a great deal of fuss over Sheila’s paella (which Hen graciously if almost too solemnly served, calling out the ingredients as he spooned them onto plates: chicken, shrimp, sausage, clams, squid: there seemed to be some silly joke about the squid, which one of the women at the table professed to fear); so Monica and Win were able to speak together at some length, uninterrupted, about—but what had they talked about, Monica wondered afterward—and they were able to establish the fact that they liked each other, they liked each other very much.