"I'm cold, darling," she whispered. "Please come back and cover me up. And I wish you would rub my back a little more. You have such strong and beautiful hands—the hands of an artist."
The Chief Monitor did not turn. He continued to stare out across the city and after a moment a tiny muscle in his jaw began to twitch.
"Is it really my hands you like," he said at last. "Or the way I kiss you, or the words I speak? Or do you talk that way because you know I am susceptible to flattery and it would be a very great blow to you if I should decide that another woman would please me more?"
A slight pout appeared on the woman's face, but she did not appear to be offended.
"How many women have you had, darling?" she asked, her voice tantalizingly low-pitched, so that the Chief Monitor had to strain to catch the words. "Do not be afraid to tell me. No man who can make love with such perfect understanding of how to best please a woman could have passed many nights alone. How many, darling? Fifty, one hundred?"
"You know better than that," the Chief Monitor said, still not turning. "I have loved a dozen women perhaps ... no more."
The woman on the couch sighed. "Well, a dozen is not too bad for a man who tells everyone that he has not loved at all. How long can you keep up the deception, darling? You behave so impetuously at times. Almost like one of those mad lovers in the old books. Who would think to look at you that you could become so masterful in bed!"
The Chief Monitor turned abruptly, his eyes blazing with fury. "I will not listen to such talk. I do not have to listen. Don't think for a moment that I do not know that you secretly despise me. You are two-faced, and there is a thinly-veiled mockery in everything you say, even when you appear to be paying me a compliment!"
The woman sighed, changed her position again, and stretched out white arms in the darkness. "Don't be silly, darling. That is not true at all. Come here. Have I not always succeeded in convincing you that the harsh things you say to me at times are completely untrue? Have you ever held a more responsive woman in your arms. Tell me! Have you?"
"You are responsive only when it is to your advantage to convince me that you are not as cold and cruel and calculating as I know you to be. You are incapable of loving anyone. You tempt a man beyond endurance and then turn completely cold. You have done that time and time again."