One Coffee With

resignation. 'Tea bags will be fine.'

As Sigrid started for the kitchen, he exclaimed, 'How careless of me! I almost forgot I have a letter for you.' He fumbled in his breast pocket. 'Gone! My wallet-'

'There on the coffee table,' she said; and as he drew himself up, she said defensively, 'For all I knew, you could have been a thief.'

'And you thought I might have been carrying my own Wanted Poster, Miss Harald?' he said icily. Then in another of abrupt about-faces, he asked curiously,

'Do they?'

Sigrid was caught off guard. 'Do who what?'

'Thieves. Do they ever carry clippings of their exploits? You know: Tiffany's robbed of half a million in diamonds during daring morning theft.' Things of that nature.' He had found the letter in his wallet and handed it to her as he waited for her answer.

'I really don't know,' she said nonplussed. 'I suppose it's possible, but I've never heard of it. I've never worked Burglary, though.'

'I may do a detective novel. I'm a writer, you see.' he confided, padding down the hall behind her as she headed for the kitchen. 'I could have the criminal keep a scrapbook with newspaper clippings of all his nefarious deeds, and after he was caught, there would be a marvelous denouement with my detective realizing that he hadn't known half the crimes my gangster had committed. He'd be simply flabbergasted!'

Tramegra beamed at her. 'You'll probably find me a complete nuisance before I've finished, Miss Harald, but I warn you I'm going to pick your brain for technical details. They're very important in a book. Attention to detail is what separates the careful writer from the hack, you know.'

His accent was an amalgam of cinema British, Boston Yankee and American Midwest, and he was still burbling as Sigrid pointed him in the direction of the bathroom to freshen up.

In the kitchen she filled the kettle, unearthed a seldom used teapot, rinsed out the dust and put in two tea bags, their tagged strings dangling over the edge. As she waited for the water to boil, she read Anne's letter:

Cagliari, April 12 Siga, dear.

Sorry not to have written before. Italy 's got weird. The kidnappings would be funny if none of them were violent. Can you believe that a carabiniere's wife was held for $110 last week? None of us go anywhere alone, and we dress and look like retired school-teachers without a sou in the world to pay even a $10 ransom.

Sigrid paused for a moment to imagine what her mother's idea of a retired schoolteacher would be. She doubted Anne could make herself look that dowdy. Then back to the letter:

But I'll write you all about it another time because this is supposed to be introducing Roman Tramegra. I've told him he can use my place while I'm gone. That'll save you having to come over. Be nice to him. He's had a very difficult time lately-someone rooked him of his money, and he doesn't want to talk about it. Not that you would ask, I know, but you do have a way of looking at people until they feel so guilty that they start babbling too much.

There, you see? You've even got me doing it long distance.

Anyhow, Romey's a dear, sweet man. And he does need a place to stay while he researches his novel-something to do with a man who falls in love with a holographic image or something like that. (He seemed to think I'd know how holograms work just because I'm a photographer. When I don't even know how a reflex camera works!)

See you sometime next month. Shall I bring you a sheepskin rug?

Love, Mother

The kettle whistled stridently. Sigrid filled the teapot, added sugar and a jar of nondairy creamer to the mug and spoon already on the tray and carried it into the living room.

Tramegra had exchanged his jacket and scarf for a dark brown cardigan. Again Sigrid noted a softness about him, though he couldn't be called fat. An impression of fragile bones beneath a covering of soft flesh. Then she remembered a large, soft Persian cat her southern grandmother had owned-that was what Roman Tramegra reminded her of-a large, soft, pampered cat, amiable, but always with a slight reserve of dignity behind the amiability.

He moved aside a bowl of dead flowers and gathered up a handful of odds and ends to clear a space of the coffee table for the tray Sigrid carried.

'Ah, tea,' he exclaimed. 'How welcome it is! And you mustn't apologize for the imitation cream. No one could produce fresh milk on such short notice.' Still there was an involuntary lift of his eyebrow when he noticed the mug instead of a china cup and saucer, as if she really might make apology for that lapse. Manners triumphed, however, and he said, 'Aren't you joining me?'

'Sorry,' she said, glancing at her watch. It was after eleven. 'This has been a long day. The guest room's second on the left there; I think Mother keeps its linens in the bottom bureau drawer.'

They both looked around the big messy living area. Sigrid supposed she should make some sort of effort, but she was too tired. Instead she gathered up her jacket, purse and the Life folder. 'If you can't find anything, just root around,' she advised him. 'And if you need me, I'm in the phone book.'

'Oh, I'm sure I'll manage,' he said pouring his tea. 'All this really needs is a good vacuuming.' He looked again at the clutter-at the heaps of newspapers and magazines piled beside couches and chairs and under tables, at the moldy coffee mugs, ashtrays and stray pieces of feminine apparel.

'Or maybe a shovel,' Sigrid heard him amend as she let herself out.

11

FROM infancy Sigrid had known puzzled looks from her mother's friends. Sooner or later would be murmured the inevitable, 'She certainly doesn't take after you or Leif, does she?' The comparisons didn't hurt less for being voiced in soft southern accents as Sigrid discovered the Christmas Anne was delayed by an assignment in the Philippines. Grandmother Lattimore had come up from North Carolina to keep Sigrid company when she came home from boarding school, thirteen years old and at her very gawkiest.

Mrs. Lattimore had raised three feminine belles, and she was at a loss with this Yankee granddaughter. She had bought Sigrid a Christmas dress of red velvet and white lace, but even she immediately saw how inappropriate such a dress would be on a child all arms and legs. Sigrid was already two inches taller than her grandmother. Her hair was dark like Anne's, but its absolute straightness came from Leif, and it was so silky fine that it frizzed when Mrs. Lattimore tried to curl it.

'You've got a lot of things about you like your mama and daddy, honey,' the woman had sighed, 'only you just went and put them together differently. Well, I guess it doesn't really matter. They say you're going to be real intelligent. That's nice.' Her voice had been dubious; then more briskly she'd added, 'You're still not grown up yet, and if you cultivate a pleasant personality, why you'll do just fine! Look at your Cousin Lunette-plain as an old board fence, and she was the most popular girl of her year. Eight marriage proposals before she was twenty, and she had those squinchy little eyes from the Howard side of her family. At least yours are nice and wide, honey. All you need do is learn to use them.'

Anne had always talked about the 'marvelous planes' of her face; but after Grandmother Lattimore's blunt assessment Sigrid had gone into the bathroom, locked the door and studied herself feature by feature, angrily brushing away the tears that welled up in her clear gray eyes.

Coldly she noted that her face wasn't actually repulsive, and that grandmother was right. Her eyes probably were her best feature. They would have to suffice.

Since then Sigrid had stopped looking in mirrors except to be sure everything hung together decently. Once and for all on that thirteenth Christmas she had decided-and accepted the fact-that she was homely and ungraceful, and it had never occurred to her that she might have changed. Or that there were standards of beauty other than her grandmother's stereotype.

She had no idea how stunning she could look when alone in the evenings, her dark hair loose, and robed in one