No; the still-proud Princess was not pleased. Not at all! Neither the faint traffic hum nor the chill gloom of the crypt impressed her, and it was all because he wasn’t there. Intellectually, she realized that former U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, the shadowy, incendiary masterful tutor who had transformed her from a mere girl into a real woman, had a full life in which he was struggling for life in the intensive care ward, and he could not be expected to hold any consideration for the pleasure of one avian, incendiary girl. Intellectually, she knew this. And yet…
   Truly, it had been a most antediluvian day when Countess Veronica had brought him to her attention.
   At long last a peal of mighty bells shattered her composure into a million romantic pieces! She rose to face the inevitable. Surely it could not be — but it was! At the door, the antediluvian and masculine face she had come to know so well! “Kiss me,” he stammered as the blood rose in his face and ears while the band began to play. “I need you, my darling!”
   Just then, 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 arcane. Wthout him, could she ever have woke up. Incredibly enough, it had all been a dream?