“. . . She too was terrified of it, the mirror-ghoul,” Sheila said, raising her glass in a mock toast. “‘I don’t know who that woman is,’ she’d tell us, ‘—I don’t know who that thing is and I’m not going to look again.’ But she knew, she knew.”

Monica licked her lips and said softly that she was sorry.

“Sorry? Why?” Sheila said irritably. “The mirror-ghoul is waiting for you too—even if you are a golden girl.”

Sheila disappeared, spent the day in Philadelphia, flew to Boston, flew to San Francisco . . . then suddenly she dropped by at Monica’s without telephoning . . . or left scribbled notes stuck in Monica’s door (her handwriting was virtually indecipherable, Monica spent long anxious minutes trying to read it: suppose the message were important?). She returned several times, nagging, insistent, to the subject of Morocco; six weeks in Morocco; a villa on the sea; and perhaps a visit to Egypt as well; had Monica ever been to Egypt? (“Of course not,” Monica said, laughing, “—you know I haven’t been anywhere.” “Then we’ll find you a Moslem lover,” Sheila said zestfully, “—and maybe you’ll never want to come back to Pennsylvania.”)

Once Monica came home to find Sheila lounging in her station wagon, smoking a cigarette and examining Monica’s mail. She had not torn open any of the envelopes—so far as Monica knew she had not slipped any in her pockets—but she behaved rather guiltily when Monica confronted her. “In case your husband, your former husband, is harassing you,” Sheila said. “I thought I’d better check. I don’t want you to be upset, Monica—you know you get easily upset.”

One windy Sunday afternoon Sheila rode her chestnut gelding Parsifal (“Would any other name do?”) across the fields from Edgemont, arriving disheveled and flushed at Monica’s house; and, unfortunately, at a supremely awkward hour. Monica had student themes to correct, lessons to prepare, letters to write (“Really? letters? to whom?” Sheila asked suspiciously); and, though she hesitated to tell Sheila, she had a dinner engagement that evening with a man from town—one of the Academy’s attorneys, to whom she had been introduced by Jill Starkie.

(“This very nice man,” Jill had said, “—this very, very nice, lonely, civilized man!—oh I know you will like him.” And Monica did like him, to a degree.)

So she explained to her friend that she was busy; desperately busy; and Sheila was offended at once. “In fact I’m rather busy too,” Sheila said. “I only rode over on a whim since we haven’t talked for a day or two. I just wondered how you are—I really don’t intend to stay.”

“Will you have a drink, at least?” Monica said guiltily.