"She has a beautiful place. Have you seen it? Of course you haven't ... because you met her tonight for the first time. So perhaps I'd better describe it for you. You go up in a private elevator, and you step out and there you are--in a real golden Rembrandt setting. The lighting is the newest Paris importation, and there are a lot of abstract paintings on the walls of her bedroom, you know, all little colored squares in different colors that mean absolutely nothing but only hang on the walls of the major league museums because the smaller museums can't afford them. "'I'll be back in a minute,' she'll say, and away she'll go, tripping lightly, into the bathroom--all black onyx with gold fixtures--and when she comes out you'll be sitting with a cocktail glass in your hand--she'll have invited you to mix your own, with just the right shade of icing, at a private bar that will knock your eyes out--and when you see what she's wearing, or isn't wearing, you'll forget where you are and think you're in a kind of glorified cathouse." She became a little frightened when she saw the way Roger was looking at her and lowered her eyes, wishing she'd kept silent. Simply had it out with him, the way she'd intended and walked out of the apartment for the last time, slamming the door behind her. Why had she ranted on so recklessly? She'd talked like a shrew driven half out of her mind by jealousy, and that had been a mistake. It was giving him too much ammunition, giving him the kind of satisfaction he wasn't entitled to. Angering him at the same time, making him look at her in a strange way, a way new to her, as if the suggestive picture she'd painted for him of a totally shameless Lathrup had aroused in him instincts that were base and dangerous. Something about the look not only scared her, it caused her to pale a little and move further away from him. Then her own anger came sweeping back and she said the worst possible thing, and could have bitten her tongue out the instant it left her lips. "Don't look so shocked, little man. I've a feeling it wouldn't take much finesse on the part of any woman to seduce you." It was cruelly insulting for two reasons, but she realized that too late. He wasn't a little man. He was a very big man and completely sure of himself as far as his masculinity was concerned. And no man likes to think that it is the woman who is doing the seducing. It was almost as bad as those ridiculous cases you read about in the newspapers, where a man goes into court and claims he's been taken advantage of by a woman in a physical way, his high-minded morality impaired. A male virgin, backed into a corner by an Amazon determined to rape him.