"Get your heel out of my ear, and maybe I can," Marc rasped furiously. In the ensuing mad scramble to let go of each other, they became so helplessly entangled that finally, in desperation, they both gave up. It was in this edifying moment that the room suddenly became ablaze with light.
Marc looked up to find Toffee sitting rigidly upright on his chest, her gaze directed at a chair across the room, her eyes filled with horror.
For an awful moment, the room became starkly silent, as Julie rose from the chair and stared down at them. Her blue eyes gave Marc a graphic description of a glacial age that he had thought long dead. The light flashed in her blond hair, as she lowered her face to Toffee's.
"Get off my husband, you nasty little harpy," she rasped.
Dazedly, Toffee did as she was told, and Julie turned her attention to Marc.
"And as for you, you double-dealing ogre; get up off that floor and stop looking like the less intelligent half of a seal act. And you needn't bother saying that she's your cousin, either. I've heard that one before. Even your family couldn't produce anything that depraved. She probably has a police record that would stretch from here to Shanghai."
"I have nothing to hide!" Toffee put in elegantly, refusing to accept this blot on her character.
Julie's answering gaze lingered malignantly on the black dress. "Lucky for you," she said caustically. "You'd be in a really rotten spot for it, if you did."
"But Julie! You don't understand!" Marc cried, disentangling his long legs, and getting uncertainly to his feet.
"I've understood for longer than you think!" Julie cried angrily. "I've always suspected that this sort of thing was going on around here, and when you broke our luncheon date, I thought I'd come down to find out the reason. I knew if I waited around long enough, something would turn up."