“I’ve got two closing calls on Forty-Fourth Street before noon,” he said, smoothing his lapels without turning around.

“Don’t wait up for dinner if the executive committee runs long.”

He picked up his briefcase and left the townhouse without touching his lukewarm tea.

By nine o’clock I was sitting at a little marble table by the back window of the Fifth Avenue Bakery.

Nora Miller took off her reading glasses and set them on a pile of printed corporate payroll sheets.

She picked up her silver fountain pen and capped and uncapped it with a dry metallic click.