“It’s too long to leave him, Bern.”

“You left your cats.”

“Ubi and Archie have each other for company. Besides, Fred from across the hall is going to pop in once a day to feed and water them. I’d have done the same for Raffles, but since you invited me along-”

“I know.”

She patted my hand. “Incidentally,” she said, “I really appreciate it, Bern. It’s great of you to bring me.”

“Well, I didn’t want to go by myself.”

“I guess that wouldn’t be much fun.”

“I’d go nuts,” I said. “Just sitting around twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the scones to clot.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the cream, Bern.”

“Whatever. You’re my best friend, Carolyn. There’s nobody I’d rather be taking to Cuttleford House.”

“That’s a sweet thing to say, Bernie. Even if it’s not exactly true.”

“What do you mean?”

“ Bern,” she said, “let’s have a quick reality check here, okay? A romantic weekend at an English country house in the dead of winter-”

“Some dead of winter. It’s March already. It’s almost spring.”

“Forget the calendar, Bern. It’s too cold to go for a walk in the woods. There’ll be a fire on the hearth and frost on the counterpane.”

“A counterpane’s like a bedspread,” I said, “and I hope there won’t be any frost on ours.”

“Well, you know what I mean. Now go ahead and tell me you wouldn’t rather be spending the weekend with a beautiful woman.”

“You’re a beautiful woman, Carolyn.”

“I’m reasonably attractive,” she allowed, “but I think beautiful is stretching it. Anyway, that’s beside the point. You don’t want a woman who’s apt to lose her head over some sweet young thing like Sherry Trifle. You want a woman who’ll lose her head over you.”

“Some other time,” I said. “Right now all I want is a friend.”

The conductor came through. “Next stop Whitham Junction,” he announced. “Change here for…” and he named a string of places no one ever heard of, Pattaskinnick among them. Carolyn nudged me and pointed out the window. Snow was falling.

“Well, they said it would snow north of the city,” I said. “And here we are, north of the city, and that’s what it’s doing.”

“I think it’s beautiful,” she said, “and I hope it doesn’t stop. I hope it snows all weekend.”

I might have bridled at that if I’d been paying attention. But my mind was otherwise engaged, so much so that I missed what she said next. When I’d let a couple of lines pass without comment, she said, “Bernie?”

“Sorry. I guess I was lost in space.”

“She’s been on your mind a lot, hasn’t she?”

“Who, Lettice?”

“Uh-huh. It’s okay, Bern. It’s only natural. You took a real shot to the heart, and now you’re on this trip with me instead of her, and it stands to reason you’re going to spend a certain amount of time mooning over the woman.”

“Mooning,” I said. “Is that what I was doing?”

“Well-”

“I don’t think I was mooning,” I said. “As a matter of fact I wasn’t thinking of Miss Lettice Runcible at all.”

“You weren’t?”

I stood up, got our bags down from the overhead rack. “As it happens,” I said, “I was thinking of Raymond Chandler.”

I should start at the beginning.

Well, near the beginning, anyway. At my apartment, say, some ten days before Carolyn and Raffles and I caught a train to Pattaskinnick by way of Whitham Junction. It was around eleven o’clock, and my Mel Tormé tape was about to reverse itself automatically once again, and I was trying to decide what to do about it.

“Would you like to hear it again?” I asked Lettice. “Or should I put on something else?”

“It doesn’t matter, Bernie.”

I reached out a hand, rested it on her flank, and let my fingers do the walking. “We could try silence,” I suggested, “interrupted only by our own heavy breathing, and occasional cries of passion.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to do all the heavy breathing yourself,” she said. “It’s time I got on home.”

“You could stay.”

“Oh, not tonight, Bernie.” She sat up in bed and extended her arms overhead, stretching like a cat. “I have an early day tomorrow. I’d best be off. I don’t suppose you’ve seen my panties, have you?”

“Not since you took them off. At that point I lost interest in them.”

She hopped out of bed and looked for them, and I looked at her. This was an agreeable task, because she looked absolutely splendid. She was about five-six or-seven, and quite slender, but by no means angular. Curves everywhere, but they were all gentle curves with no hairpin turns; if she’d been a road, you wouldn’t have to downshift or, God forbid, hit the brake pedal. Her hair was the color of tupelo honey, and her skin was the color of cream, and her eyes were the color of an Alpine lake. The first time I laid eyes on her I’d been struck by her beauty, and she looked a hundred times better now. Because she’d had clothes on then, and now she didn’t, and I’ll tell you, it makes a difference.

She put a dainty hand on a gorgeous hip and studied the painting on the wall opposite the bed. “I’ll miss this,” she said idly. “It’s really quite a good copy, isn’t it?”

It’s a canvas some eighteen inches square, with black vertical and horizontal lines on a white field. Some of the squares are filled in with primary colors. I asked her how she could tell it was a copy.

She raised an eyebrow. “Well, its location’s a dead giveaway, wouldn’t you say? You’d hardly be apt to find an original Mondrian here.”

“Here” was a one-bedroom apartment at Seventy-first and West End, and it’s actually a pretty decent place to live, even if you wouldn’t be likely to mistake it for the Museum of Modern Art.

“Besides,” she said, “you can just tell an original, can’t you? I spent two hours at the Mondrian show at MOMA. You must have gone.”

“Twice. Once when it opened and again just before it closed the end of January.”

“Then surely you know what I mean. When you’ve seen the actual originals, not just reproductions of them in books, you wouldn’t be taken in by a copy like this.” She smiled. “Not that it’s not very good for what it is, Bernie.”

“Well, we can’t all be originals,” I said. “What did you mean when you said you’d miss it?”

“Did I say that? I was talking to myself, really. Bernie, where are my panties?”

“I swear I’m not wearing them.”

“Oh, here they are. Now how do you suppose they got all the way over here?”

“They flew on wings of love,” I said. I got out of bed myself and turned off Mel Tormé. “There’s something I keep forgetting to ask you. Are you free a week from Thursday?”

“A week from Thursday. Not this Thursday but the following Thursday.”

“Right.”

“Thursday week, the English would say.”

“They probably would,” I said, “and that actually ties in with what I’m about to suggest. See, I thought-”

“Actually, I’m not.”

“You’re not what?”

“Free. On Thursday week.”

“Oh,” I said. “Is it something you can get out of?”

“Not really.”

“Because if you could postpone it, we could-”

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, Thursday would have been best, but I suppose we could let it go until Friday.”

“That’s Friday week.”

“Right. A week from this coming Friday. We could-”

“We can’t.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Actually,” she said, “I’m afraid I’ll be tied up the whole weekend, Bernie, from Thursday evening on.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Sorry.”

“I was sort of planning on us spending the weekend together, but-”

“I’m afraid it’s not on. Could you hook this for me, Bernie?”

“Uh, sure. Oh, sorry. My hand slipped.”

“Oh, I’ll just bet it did.”

“Well, an irresistible impulse drew it here. But if you don’t like the way it feels-”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Or if you want me to stop-”