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know, Sara, you can call there now on the telephone?"
    "Yes, but Ben tried to place a call to London the other day, and he and this man just
shouted
at each other until they finally gave up and rang off" She waved her hand in the air; that was neither here nor there. "I'm glad for you, truly I am. What will you do?"
    "Study. At the Louvre, with an artist named Jean Laucoeur. Oh, Sara, think of it—he's a genius, and he wants
me
." "You never even told me you were thinking of doing this." She tried not to sound accusing.
    "Because I never thought he would take me. It was such a daydream, the chance seemed so small. But he wrote me,
finally
, and he said my work has 'resonance.' Resonance!" She grabbed Sara's hands and squeezed them tight.
    She had to laugh. Before she could reply, the maid announced from the doorway, "Mr. McKie, ma'am."
    Sara rose to meet Mr. McKie in the center of the room. She'd forgotten how tall he was. His clothes were conservative in the extreme—a gray frock coat with silk lapels, plain trousers, and a broad knotted tie of a darker gray—but he wore them with such unself-conscious assurance, they seemed almost dashing. "How good of you to come on a Sunday," she told him, shaking hands. "I know my husband's schedule can sometimes be an inconvenience."
    "Not at all, I was delighted to come." He smiled, and she noticed what she hadn't been able to see in the artificial light at Sherry's—that his eyes were intensely blue and his dark, blond-tipped lashes were nearly as long as a woman's.
    She led him over to the couch, where Lauren still sat curled in the corner like a cat. "Lauren, this is Mr. McKie, our new architect. Miss Hubbard is an old friend."
    Lauren stretched a hand up, with a look on her face that Sara knew well: full of charm and coy delight, it was the one she wore whenever she met a new man who interested her. Sara folded her arms while the two of them spoke pleasantly and easily, discovering within a few sentences that they had mutual friends. Did Mr. McKie find Lauren attractive? Well, Sara thought, what man wouldn't? She was small and petite, hardly taller than a child, but still unmistakably feminine. Huge, beautiful green eyes dominated her wry, intelligent face. If men were sometimes put off, it was because of her determinedly eccentric dress. Today she could have passed for a gypsy herself in a beaded smock of orange and yellow printed muslin. She'd wrapped an Indian scarf around her head for a turban, hiding the pretty brown hair she wore short in defiance of fashion.
    When she and Mr. McKie ran out of conversation for a moment, Lauren unwound gracefully and stood up. "I hate to go, but I must—I've promised to watch some friends rehearse for a new play at the DeWitt Theatre."
    It was the first Sara had heard. She looked at her watch. Nearly four; Ben would be home soon. He was infallibly rude to Lauren, so she avoided him whenever possible. Sara often wondered what he disliked about Lauren more—her ideological opposition to everything he stood for or simply that she and Sara loved each other, and their friendship was something he couldn't control?
    "I'll call you, Sara," Lauren said, pulling on a fringed shawl.
    "Yes, you'd better. I want to hear all about Paris."
    "Goodbye, Mr. McKie, it's been a great pleasure."
    "The pleasure was mine." They shook hands again, and Lauren glided out. A hint of her lemon-and-clove cologne lingered in the room after her.
    "Please, sit down," Sara invited, and Mr. McKie took a seat on the just-vacated couch. "I can't think what's keeping Ben. He went to his office at noon, but he said he'd be home in a few hours. He knew you were coming to tea, of course." Indeed, he'd commanded her to invite him so he could see the revised plans for the Newport house before he left for Chicago. "I see you've brought your blueprints—is that what you call them?" She indicated the long cardboard tube he set on the floor at his feet.
    "No, these are the design