“But I cannot accept it.”

“Of course you can.”

“I want to pay for it,” she said. She put a five and a twenty on the counter. “Please,” she said.

I slipped the book into a paper bag, handed it to her, and gave her three dollars change. I didn’t ring the sale and I didn’t collect the tax. Don’t tell the governor.

“You are very sweet,” she said. “But how can you make money if you give your books away?” She put her hand on mine. “I think there is more to you than shows on the surface. Do you know what I think? I think you are like him.”

“Like-?”

“Humphrey Bogart. Has anyone told you that?”

“No,” I said. “Never.”

She cocked her head, studying me. “It is not physical,” she said. “You do not look like him. And your voice is nothing like his. But there is something, yes?”

“Well, uh-”

“Do you have a secret life?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Perhaps,” she said. “Are you secretly violent, like Dixon Steele?” She cocked her head, took a long look at me. “I don’t think so. But there is something, isn’t there? It is a very romantic quality, I can tell you that much.”

“It is?”

“Oh, yes. Very romantic.” A knowing smile played on those lips. “Take me out this evening.”

“Wherever you say.”

“Not to Paris,” she said. “That would be romantic, wouldn’t it? If we were to meet like this, and tonight we flew to Paris. But I don’t want you to take me to Paris, not yet.”

“ Paris can wait.”

“Yes,” she said. “We’ll always have Paris. Tonight you may take me to the movies.”

After she left, I went over and touched Raffles to make sure he was alive. He hadn’t changed position during her visit, and it was hard to imagine he could have ignored her. I scratched him behind the ear and he swung his head around and gave me a look.

“You missed her,” I told him. “Go back to sleep.”

He yawned and stretched, then sprang lightly down from the sill and hurried to check his water dish. He is a gray tabby, and Carolyn Kaiser, my best friend in all the world, has assured me that he is a Manx. I’ve since given the matter some study, and I’m not so sure. As far as I can tell, the only thing Manxlike about him is the tail he doesn’t have.