Billy was a lot older than she was, nearly sixteen years older, in fact-was there something about her, she wondered ruefully, that was especially attractive to older men?-and he was not good-looking or clever, but he had a clumsy charm that she liked despite herself and that in time allowed her to convince herself she was in love with him. They had been going together only a few months when one night as he was walking her home-she had a little room of her own now, over a butcher's shop in Kevin Street-he started to stammer and all of a sudden grabbed her hand and pressed a little square box into it. She was so surprised she did not realize what the box was until she opened it.

That was the first time she let him come up to her room. They sat side by side on the bed and he kissed her all over her face-he was still stammering and laughing, unable to believe she had said yes-and talked about all the plans he had for the future, and she almost believed him, holding her hand out in front of her with the fingers bent back and admiring the thin gold band with its tiny, flashing diamond. He was from Waterford, where his family kept a pub that his Da would probably leave to him, but he said he would not go back, though she noticed that when he spoke of Waterford city he called it home. He told her about Geneva, where he was summoned twice a year for a meeting at Head Office, as he called it, of all the top bosses worldwide, hundreds of them. He was so proud to be brought all that way, him, who was only a salesman! He described the lake, and the mountains, and the city-"so clean, you wouldn't believe it!"-and said he would take her there one day. Poor Billy, with his big ideas, his grand schemes.