All this flashed through my mind in the space of an instant, needless to say, for I was already replying to Marion’s disdainful comment: “And it shall be my pleasant duty, dear Marion, to provide you with a justifiable reason for having made this visit to me. Would you not take a cup with me in my sitting room?”

She swept in, glancing about with her lips pursed in evident contempt of my surroundings, though even Alice had complimented me on their decor and neatness for a bachelor. That was another black mark against Marion’s account which, I, promised myself, I meant to settle to the very fullest measure of my capacities-and hers!-before this afternoon wended its way to its exciting end. Finished with her inspection, she turned back to me and remarked almost insolently, “Mind you, I shan’t stay long. The only reason I came, if you must know, was that I had some shopping at the milliner’s and at a book store not far from your apartment. And since you made such an important point of communicating with me, I decided to grant you this meeting.”

“I’m happy that you did, Marion. Alice has always spoken so favorably of you, and even though you did oppose our knowing each other, I shall hope to persuade you that I am not so black as I have been painted.” I did not feel it necessary to add at that point that the painting had been done by Marion herself. Alice had inherently a warm and generous nature-which, to be sure, the sweet pursuit of her conquest had fully unleashed! But I could tell at once that Marion preferred this icy veneer as a kind of shield. Therefore the question was: Was she totally frigid and devoid of warmth and a capacity for passion, or was this veneer only assumed to hide her true outlook? Well, that was precisely the question I had posed myself to have answered for me in my snuggery.