“Don’t be so damned reasonable, Kate. We’re an hour late already, and I’m not going to a party with my hands like this. We’re going back home.”

“That’s childish.”

“Thank you.” Breton locked up the car, carelessly smudging the pale blue paintwork with oil from his hands. “Let’s go.”

“I’m going on to the Maguires,” Kate said. “You can go home and sulk if that’s what you want.”

“Don’t be stupid. You can’t go all the way over there by yourself.”

“I can go by myself and I can get back by myself — I did it all right for years before I met you.”

“I know you’ve been around, sweetie — I’ve always been too tactful to mention it, that’s all.”

“Thank you. Well, at least you won’t have the embarrassment of being seen in public with me tonight.”

Hearing the hopelessness creep into her voice, Breton felt a flicker of malicious glee. “How are you planning to get there? Did you bring any money?”

She hesitated, then held out her hand. “Give me something for taxi fare, Jack.”

“Not a chance. I’m childish — remember? We’re going home.” He savored her helplessness for a moment, somehow extracting revenge for his own cruelty, then the whole thing fell apart in his hands. This is bad, he thought, even for me. So I arrive late at a party with my face and hands all black — a balanced person would see that as a chance to do an Al Jolson act. Let her ask me just once more and I’ll give in and we’ll go to the party.

Instead, Kate uttered one short, sharp word — filling him with wounded dismay — and walked away down the street past blazing store windows. With her silvered wrap drawn tight over the flimsy dress, and long legs slimmed even further by needle-heeled sandals, she looked like an idealized screen version of a gangster’s moll. For a moment he seemed to see the physical presence of her more clearly than ever before, as though some long-unused focusing mechanism had been operated behind his eyes.