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myself. I'm on display. I'm sucker bait. I have a good figure and I know it, and I'm supposed to let other people know it. That's part of the job."
    "And Helly, as you call him, has noticed it?" Mason asked.
    "I'll say he's noticed it! He noticed it right from the start. Last night he-Mr. Mason, he asked me last night if I'd run away with him. He wanted to throw up the whole business and start all over again."
    "What did you tell him?"
    "I told him no."
    "Well?" Mason asked, somewhat impatiently.
    "All right," she said, "I'll get to the point. Nadine Ellis went to an attorney, a Mr. Gowrie. Do you know him?"
    "Darwin Gowrie?" Mason asked.
    "Darwin C. Gowrie," she said.
    "I've heard of him," Mason said. "Quite a divorce lawyer, I believe."
    "That's right. Mr. Gowrie called early this morning. He wanted to talk with me. He said he was Nadine's attorney-I thought, of course, it was about the legal point you had raised about the gambling, but I couldn't imagine why he wanted to talk with me. I thought he would want to talk with George."
    "But you saw him?"
    "I saw him," she said, "and it seems what he really wanted was to question me about Helly."
    "Getting evidence for a divorce?"
    "I don't know. He asked me all about my relationship with Helly, how long I'd known him, how many times he had been at the club, whether he noticed me and… well, whether he'd ever made passes at me."
    "Had he?" Mason asked.
    "Of course," she said.
    "And you told this to Gowrie?"
    "No."
    "You lied?"
    "I lied."
    "Convincingly?" Mason asked.
    "I hope so," she said. "Isn't a woman supposed to… well, isn't there supposed to be sort of a code of ethics about-?"
    "Professional confidences?" Mason asked.
    "Something like that."
    "I wouldn't know," Mason said. "Why do you come to me?"
    "Because I want your advice."
    "On what point?"
    "I want to go to Mrs. Ellis and tell her."
    "Tell her what?"
    "Tell her she is wrong about Helman and me and shouldn't make a fool of herself. She has a very fine husband. She'd better hang on to him. I've seen too many instances of women divorcing a man over some little thing and then regretting their action."
    "Making passes is a little thing?" Mason asked.
    "Of course. They all do-that is, nearly all-and I wouldn't give a snap of my finger for those who don't. Most of them don't really mean a thing by it. It's just the normal biological reaction of the male animal."
    "You intend to explain that to Mrs. Ellis?"
    "Not that so much as… well… the facts of marriage."
    "What," Mason asked, "are the facts of marriage?"
    "A man asks a woman to marry him because he enjoys her companionship. As long as he enjoys her companionship he's going to stay home with her. When he begins to wander around, it's because something has happened to take the keen edge off that enjoyment."
    "Doesn't that happen with time?" Mason asked.
    "It can," she said. "But the point is that when it does, the natural thing for the woman to do is to start reproaching the man, throwing it up to him that he's neglecting her, that he's getting tired of her now that she's given him the best years of her life, and all of that."
    "You seem to know a lot about it," Mason said.
    "I've been through it," she said.
    "And played your cards wrong?" Mason asked.
    "Just as wrong as I could have played them," she said. "I lost a mighty good man. If I'd only had sense enough to make it a pleasure for him to come home, he'd have stayed home. Instead of that, I made the home a hell on earth for him and pushed him right into the arms of a cheap little tramp who took him to the cleaners."
    "But then he came back?" Mason asked.
    She shook her head.
    "Why not?"
    "Let's not go into that," she said.
    "All right," Mason told her. "What do you want to know?'' "Whether you think, under the circumstances, I should go to Mrs. Ellis and tell her exactly… well, put my cards on the table. I don't want her husband. I wouldn't have him on a bet. He's… well, he just doesn't appeal to me,