"Let's just say for the present, January," he said, "that I know why you refused to account for those funds." "Let's just say goodbye," I said, staggering to my feet. I started for the door. "Sit down, you drunken bum," he said. "Why you--" I snarled, turning toward him sober with rage, my fingers constricting. He sat there, grinning at me, undisturbed by my threatening posture. As if to flaunt his unconcern in my face he took out a long cigar and lit it nonchalantly. I stared into his lifeless eyes through the screen of freshly generated blue smoke and sat down slowly. He looked back at me, his face expressionless behind the cigar. My rage subsided gradually. "That's better," he said finally. From that moment I hated him. Then the door opened. The girl in the watermelon red dress entered, wheeling a tray crowded with white sandwiches, green pickles and steaming black coffee. I scowled at the dream from heaven pushing the service cart, a friendly smile on her red lips, feeling a sense of defeat, of being crowded into a corner. "No thanks," I said harshly. "My stomach couldn't hold even the coffee right now." I jerked my eyes away from hers, past Dr. Leopold Moriss, to the curtains on the windows. "Get him a big glass of half tomato juice half grapefruit juice," the doctor said. "He can hold that down. It'll make him feel better." I continued to hold my eyes on the curtains, but I knew that I was licked. Whipped. Beaten into submission. When I heard the pert footsteps return and felt the cold roundness of the glass against my hand, I turned and looked up into her smiling, sympathetic eyes. "Thanks," I said gruffly. * * * * * The cold liquid stayed down, soothing the raw walls of my stomach. I half closed my eyes, experiencing the first pleasant body sensation since the warm glow of that first drink three or four days before. I watched shapely legs below the swishing dress as they went across the room to a desk. When they returned I looked up to see a cigarette between fingernails the same shade of red as the dress. I followed the slender fingers to the slim wrist, up the graceful, slightly tanned arm to the short sleeve, and from there my eyes jumped to her smiling red lips. "I'm Paula, January," she said. "Oh yes, January," Dr. Moriss' voice broke in. "This is my daughter, Paula. Her mother died many years ago. There's just the two of us, besides the handyman." I took the cigarette from her fingers without taking my eyes away from her face. She snapped a lighter and lit it the same way. I inhaled deeply, letting the smoke out slowly. "Glad to know you, Paula," I murmured. "I think you'd better leave us now, Paula," Dr. Moriss broke in in his school teacher voice. "January Stevens and I have a lot to discuss." "We can talk later, if at all," I turned on him angrily. "Two or three days from now, after my stomach will hold food down."