Mrs. Pryce glanced up. "I don't remember you, young woman," she said bluntly.

Cecily didn't falter. "Possibly not, but I remember you. My husband was posted to the embassy." "There are always hangers-on around embassies." Cecily paused. "My thought exactly."

“What is that supposed to mean?"

“Merely that I agree with you," Cecily said smoothly, and took her departure before Mrs. Pryce could get in another insult. Cecily sat down by Jane and whispered, "I guess I should count myself lucky. I got called 'young woman.' "

“Why didn't you deck the old bitch?" Shelley asked as if genuinely curious.

“Sometimes age is the best revenge," Cecily replied. "She can't possibly last as long as I can." She was speaking just loud enough that Mrs. Pryce might have heard her.

Jane wasn't paying much attention, because it had just occurred to her that her fictional person could have a long-lost identical twin. Her mind was racing along with the idea. What if she met a man who'd known the twin....

A tall man came in the classroom. He started toward the front of the room, saw Mrs. Pryce, stopped, and sat at the far end of the second row of chairs. He was lean, with painfully short hair and a stiff bearing. Jane recognized him as Bob Neufield.

He was followed by two middle-aged women. They were obviously sisters, both very feminine, blue-eyed and delicate-featured. One was painfully thin and rather ill looking, and the other prettily plump and quite tan, wearing a flowered dress with far too many ruffles for a woman her age. This sister, the fit one, was Ruth Rogers, the heroine of the swimming pool incident. She nodded at Jane's group and went to speak to Bob Neufield. She exchanged a few pleasant words about some cartons Bob had offered to take someplace. Then she came over to say hello to Jane and Shelley. Her sister, a frail, tired-looking woman, had inadvisedly taken a seat in the front row next to Mrs. Pryce.