him; she had let him see her jealousy too soon, permitted him to learn how much she missed him when he was not with her. He must now, she mused, be fully aware of his power over her. Yet she understood that in the future she could hold herself no more in check. In yielding to her first passionate emotion, she had apparently forfeited her peace of spirit. She had been in love consciously less than twenty-four hours—she realized that although something important had happened to her the day she met Byron at Adora's it was nothing like what had happened to her now—and already she was tasting all the anguish and bitterness of this condition. She was no longer the mistress of her emotions. To all intents and purposes, she admitted, she was their slave.
Olive had not yet returned when Mary entered the flat that evening. Repairing to the kitchen she lifted the lid from several canisters—flour, sugar, spices, dried mushrooms, kidney beans: all mysterious ingredients. What did one do with them? In the ice-box she discovered half a cold roast of lamb reposing on a platter, a curious mixture with a pungent aroma in a bowl, a dish of pyrex glass twothirds full of cold, scalloped potatoes. Olive, she knew, would be able to convert these substances into an appetizing meal, while she, Mary, was helpless. Sinking into a chair, she sighed.
