What I would later view as her feigned puzzlement became instant surprise and, I confess, did not look affected at all.
“Forgive me, if I am slow on the uptake, Robert,” she began, coffee-mug placed on the table and drawing herself up in a somewhat… businesslike… posture that had the effect of thrusting the breasts I regarded as over-large for her frame towards me. “But I recall sitting at this very table and hearing you tell me that your acceptance of such an offer was ‘impossible’. Or did I not hear you correctly?”
Nothing in either her dress, her manner, or her tone of voice was making this any easier for me and had it not been for the fact I knew she was my last, and one and only, chance to avoid the less than tender embrace of social welfare I would have been away from her table and
