“I’m relieved that you aren’t an artist like Sheila,” Win said in a lowered voice. “It’s so difficult to know what to make of her, isn’t it!—they say she’s very, very good—they say her paintings sell for a lot of money—but I just can’t see it, you know—I mean I’ve tried—all of us around here have tried—but we just can’t see it. Flaxman made more sense, I think—you could see he’d done a lot of work on his sculptures—but Sheila’s things, Sheila’s art, it’s all so mysterious. Don’t you think? What do you think? One night at this table Flaxman got into an argument with someone about Jackson Pollock—you know who he is, of course—all the squiggles and heavy looping strands of paint, raw paint—Flaxman said Pollock was one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century and one of his guests—I forgot who, it wasn’t me!—said ‘Bullshit’—‘Bullshit and I can prove it’—and things were pretty hot for a while, let me tell you.”

Monica glanced up at Sheila, who was busily absorbed in a chafing dish, with Hen’s help—the dessert was an exquisite soufflé au rhum—and took no notice of Monica’s conversation. “Well—how did he prove it?” Monica asked.

“Prove what?” asked Win.

“He said: ‘Bullshit and I can prove it,’ and I’m wondering how he proved it,” Monica said.

Win smiled at her, his cheeks creasing, dimpling. He must have thought she had said something especially witty because he made no reply at all.

At midnight Monica disappointed Win, and Sheila as well, by saying she had to leave.

Win immediately offered to drive her home but Monica, prepared, said she had her own car; she’d come to Edgemont under her own powers and she intended to return home under her own powers. “A point of honor,” she said, winking.

“Please stay,” Sheila said. “You can’t mean to leave now.”

“I should have left an hour ago,” Monica said. “I’m drunk.”

“You aren’t drunk—is she, Win?” Sheila cried, taking hold of Monica’s arm. “And if you are, that’s all the more reason not to drive home alone.”

But Monica was adamant, Monica was on her way.

Sheila and Win both saw her to her car. Win shook hands with her, and Sheila surprised her by embracing her rather roughly, and kissing her on the mouth—this kiss, too, rough and hurried, scarcely affectionate.

“Then, if you insist, good night!” Sheila said in playful bitterness, adjusting the little orchid above Monica’s ear.

Driving home, slowly, luxuriously, Monica kept her mind blank. She was awash, it seemed, in a remarkable erotic warmth; a pulsing erotic warmth; concentrated in her loins but radiating out, wonderfully out, to all the parts of her body.