She nodded.
"Rumba?"
"Rol was a swell dancer. And we used to have a teacher come to the house—in the days before he lost interest in—me."
"Well, I'll pick you up, around eight. The valet keeps my dinner things here—so put on a long dress."
"I don't need to be rescued, Mr. Wylie. It's sweet of you. But I'd detest to go out feeling as if I was the object of a missionary project."
"Then think of yourself as a missionary to me. I have no date. And I am very uninterested in spending this particular evening alone."
"Why?"
"Because I'm a writer. I put my heart and brain and libido into the composition of gay, mad, happy stories. Then I have to pay for it—in compensatory funk. Nothing psychological is free. The illusion that it is amounts merely to a passing human fancy—about fifty thousand years old. Surely you're familiar with the fact that humorous authors are melancholy babies, in the flesh? Well, I just miss being a humorous author—so I just miss being a one hundred per cent sourball."
"What are you going to do now?"
"That's a very possessive question," I said, "in view of the shortness of our acquaintance. However, I am going to cut a serial from two hundred and eighteen pages to one hundred and seventy-eight pages."