“You can’t do that, Dinah.” Rolff’s voice was thick, but gently firm, as if he were talking to a child. “That would be utterly filthy.”

The girl turned her face slowly toward him. Her mouth took on the look it had worn while talking to Thaler.

“I am going to do it,” she said. “That makes me utterly filthy, does it?”

He didn’t say anything, didn’t look up from the bottle. Her face got red, hard, cruel. Her voice was soft, cooing:

“It’s just too bad that a gentleman of your purity, even if he is a bit consumptive, has to associate with a filthy bum like me.”

“That can be remedied,” he said slowly, getting up. He was laudanumed to the scalp.

Dinah Brand jumped out of her chair and ran around the table to him. He looked at her with blank dopey eyes. She put her face close to his and demanded: