Tom was amazed at what he had seen on the monitor. There was something between Sarah and Miriam. His own reaction to Miriam Blaylock was now established: she was not the kind of patient he liked to treat. And he wished he hadn’t gotten Sarah involved. She didn’t need the kind of psychological warfare that the Miriams of the world indulged in. “That’s a rich little bitch in there. I don’t like her.”

Sarah nodded. Tom could see how upset and distraught she was. She had been ever since she had first seen Mrs. Blaylock. The poor girl was terribly insecure as it was. Put on the pressure and she lost all perspective.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” he said. Tom had decided to let the coolness Sarah had shown him earlier dissolve of its own accord. The mature thing would be to make himself accept it. He knew that he wasn’t more than average as a lover, not good at all as a friend, but he wanted to give Sarah what he had. To keep the interest of one such as she, Tom had accepted that he would have to concede many things.

Sarah leaned her head against his shoulder. “You’ve gotten awfully laconic.” It was an opening, and Tom almost threw his arms around her with gratitude.

“I’m worried about you, darling. You seem upset.”

Sarah nodded at the monitor. Miriam lay reading a magazine. “I am.”

“What don’t you like about her?” He thought of the murmured conversation between them, the strange gesture of the holding of hands.

“She’s—I don’t know how to express it. Perhaps the old definition of a monster, the Latin one.”

Tom smiled. “I have no idea what it is. To me a monster is a monster.”

“A divine creature. A thing of the gods. Irresistible and fatal.”

Tom looked again at the monitor. It seemed a great distance between the gods and the woman with McCalls in her hands. “I just don’t like her,” he said. “Bored, selfish, rich, a little on the compulsive side, judging from the fastidiousness of her clothes. Probably collects dicks like shrunken heads.”

He was delighted to make Sarah laugh. It always relived him, like discovering that a gift has been appreciated beyond one’s expectations. “Sometimes,” she said, “you have a way of cutting through that’s just priceless.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Now I hope you won’t worry instead of kiss me.” Her eyes at last seemed happy. He kissed her lips, puckering them with the heels of his hands.

With an annoyed little jolt he realized that she was staring past him, at the damn monitor. “My God, Tom, what did she just pick up?”

It was a book. Tom knew it perfectly well. “Was there a copy in the patients’ lounge?”