As if to counter Monica’s invitation, Sheila telephoned her a few days later to invite her for cocktails at Edgemont—to meet the sculptor Jake Halleron—“of whom I’m sure you’ve heard: his work is everywhere”—an old friend, an old friendly rival, of Morton’s. Halleron turned out to be as striking in his way as Morton Flaxman had been in his: very tall, six feet five or so; with cadaverous cheeks, sunken eyes, a fringe of metallic-gray hair about a gleaming bald pate; long arms, long legs, long blunt-fingered hands and unusually large square nails. He was courtly, flirtatious, leering, yet amiable; well-spoken; given to odd little malicious side-glances at his hostess, as if they shared a good deal—a common past of which it would be indiscreet to speak; given too to a British sort of whimsy, overlaid with sarcasm. He lived in Venice, did he?—no, Monica misunderstood: Vence. But he had a residence, a studio, in Montauk also—Montauk, Long Island, perhaps Monica knew the area?—he was living there with his ménage, or was it a menagerie—the witticisms, the innuendos, came fast, sly, slurred, and were gone by the time Monica thought to smile. She felt intimidated by him, and wondered if perhaps that was the reason for Sheila’s invitation.

An older man, very nearly an old man, in his late sixties, perhaps, Halleron behaved in a most youthful manner. He wore a pale red silk shirt with white embroidered trim and a white string tie, a Western costume, clearly a costume, but Monica could not make out if it was meant to amuse, on this snowy Sunday afternoon in Pennsylvania, or to impress. Sheila had shampooed her hair, and looked quite the country squire’s wife—tweed skirt that fell to midcalf, black-knit stockings, an oatmeal-colored cashmere sweater Monica had never seen before, a red scarf tied at her neck. Her manner with Halleron was provocative; combative; yet oddly deferential; for of course, as Monica thought, he was of Morton Flaxman’s generation—it was not absurd to imagine him and Sheila as lovers.