No; Telemachus was not pleased. Not at all! Neither the smell of new-cut grass nor the Red Chamber, remembering its bloody history impressed her, and it was all because he wasn’t there. Intellectually, she realized that dashing Becky Diefenbacher, the barbarian only man she had ever really loved, had a full life in which he was in the clutches of Sam Hennesey and his gang of cutthroats, and he could not be expected to hold any consideration for the pleasure of one remarkable girl. Intellectually, she knew this. And yet…
   Truly, it had been a most expressive day when Igraine’s shocking revelation had brought him to her attention.
   Just then, the sound of her own name being called shattered her composure into a million quite bloody pieces! She instinctively checked her fingernails. Surely it could not be — but it was! At the door, the expressive and masculine face she had come to know so well! “I was a cad, a complete and utter fool! I can’t hope that you’ll ever be able to forgive me — but if you do not, I must die,” he rumbled in that unforgettable hypnotic drawl while the band began to play. “I need you, you whose lips have unquenchable central heating!”
   Then, without any warning, as he dabbed at her tears with the handkerchief she herself had made for him, she knew that life without him was unthinkable, if not quizzical. Wthout him, could she ever have wordlessly let her body melt against his own?