Sam tipped the bellboy as soon as he had placed the bottle of bourbon, the ice bucket and their chilled glasses on the little glass coffee table. He hustled the handsome youth out of their hotel room and turned to face his wife.

Mimi was calmly preparing their drinks. As usual, she looked beautiful. She had slipped into a filmy pink peignoir trimmed with fur. He had resented the way the bellboy eyed her in that one moment before he started to back him out of the room. Obviously, even in an exclusive hotel like this one, Mimi stood out one notch above the rest. Mimi… with her dark flashing eyes, her curly black hair that reached just to chin length, her well-chiseled features that recalled a model or a women of leisure.

Mimi was not a model, but she was a woman of leisure. She had never lifted a finger in her life. She had always been pampered by men, first her father, then her first husband, and now Sam. Sam was not wealthy, but he was comfortable, thanks to an inheritance from his father, who had worked himself into an early grave establishing a business that would spare Sam and his sister the need ever to work. For appearance's sake, Sam did work, from time to time. He lectured in English literature at various universities in the States and overseas. His reputation as a minor poet and his income, he knew, were the two things that had drawn Mimi to him. Not that he thought she didn't love him. He was pretty sure that she did love him, as much as Mimi had ever loved anybody.