The next morning he awoke to the doorbell ringing. Insistently, ring, ring, ring. Groggily he tried answering the phone, which was not ringing, and then got up, slipped on a robe, and went to the door.

It was Madeleine, carrying a bunch of daisies and looking as if she hadn't slept much the night before. "You must hate me," she said.

"I thought you hated me," he said.

"Can I come in?"

"Yes, of course, come in."

"You have to understand that I—I know I overreacted the other night. I thought you were—oh, who cares what I thought? I do want to marry you, you know, and of course marriage means physical intimacy and I just—I've never been with a man that way, you know, and so I—I'm just so sorry."

"Mad, it's all right, you don't have anything to apologize for, I was insensitive I guess, I just—"

"No, it was my fault, I—"

"Didn't you get my messages?"

"I listened to them over and over. I couldn't believe you still loved me after the way I acted. I just—I couldn't call you because I didn't know what to say, I—"

"At least let me put these flowers in water. And your coat, is it that cold this morning?"

He pulled a glass pitcher out of the cupboard and put in the daisies. He meant to fill it with water but first he turned around to speak to her and saw that she had unbuttoned the coat and under it she was wearing nothing.

The coat was sliding off her shoulders but then she saw the look on his face. It must have seemed like a look of horror—not that she wasn't beautiful, her body was perfect, but from the way she acted two nights before this, it was too much, and besides, Quentin was terrified, he didn't know what to do. He dropped the pitcher onto the counter, just a couple of inches' drop so it didn't break, and the handle kept it from rolling off.