The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

scars fade within a matter of days. Has it been long?”
    Her words seemed to startle the woman to life. She picked up her glass and took a sip, swallowed, and just refrained from lickingher lips. She set her drink back on the tablecloth, but kept hold of it.
    “I’m afraid you are … mistaken.” The woman’s voice was tutored and precise, and Miss Temple thought a trifle bereft, as if a life of constraint or routine had over time encouraged a certain narrowness of mind.
    “I’m sorry, I merely assumed—because of the mask—”
    “Yes, of course—that is quite obvious—but no, that is not why—no … I have not—I am here … in secret.”
    “Are you an intimate of the Contessa?”
    “Are you?”
    “I should not say so, no,” said Miss Temple airily, forging ahead. “I am more an acquaintance of Mrs. Marchmoor. Though I have of course spoken to the Contessa. Did you—if I may speak of it openly—attend the affair at Harschmort House, when the Comte made his great
presentation
?”
    “I was there … yes.”
    “May I ask your opinion of it? Obviously, you are
here
—which is an answer in itself—but beyond that, I am curious—”
    The woman interrupted her. “Would you care for something to drink?”
    Miss Temple smiled. “What are
you
drinking?”
    “Port.”
    “Ah.”
    “Do you disapprove?” The woman spoke quickly, an eager peevishness entering her voice.
    “Of course not—perhaps a small taste—”
    The woman dramatically shoved the silver tray toward her, some several feet down the table, clinking the glasses together and jostling the bottles—though nothing fell or broke. Despite the effect of this strange gesture, Miss Temple still needed to stand to reach the tray and did so, pouring a small amount of the ruby port into an identical glass, replacing the heavy stopper, and sitting. She breathed in the sweet, medicinal odor of the liquor but did not drink, for something about the smell made her throat clench.
    “So …” Miss Temple continued, “we were
both
at Harschmort House—”
    “What of the Comte d’Orkancz,” the woman said, interrupting her
again
. “Do you know him?”
    “Oh, certainly. We were just speaking,” replied Miss Temple.
    “Where?”
    “Just here in the hotel, of course. Apparently he has other urgent business and cannot join us.”
    For a moment she thought the woman was going to stand, but she could not tell if her desire was to find the Comte or run away, startled at his being so near. It was the sort of moment where Miss Temple felt the strange injustice of being a young woman of perception and intelligence, for the more deeply her understanding penetrated a given situation, the more possibilities she saw and thus the less she knew what to do—it was the most unfairly frustrating sort of “clarity” one could imagine. She did not know whether to leap up and stop the woman from leaving or launch into a still more nauseating celebration of the Comte’s masculine authority. What she wanted was for the woman to do some of the talking instead of her, and to have an easy minute in which to sample the port. The very name of the beverage had always appealed to her, as an islander, and she had never before tasted it, as it was always the province of men and their cigars after a meal. She expected to find it as vile as it smelled—she found most liquors of any kind vile on principle—but nevertheless appreciated that this one’s name suggested travel and the sea.
    The woman did not stand, but after a poised second or two resettled herself on her seat. She leaned forward and—as if reading Miss Temple’s frustrated mind—took up her delicate glass and tipped it to Miss Temple, who then took up her own. They drank, Miss Temple appreciating the ruby sweetness but not at all liking the burn in her mouth and throat, nor the queasy feeling she now felt in her stomach. She set it down and sucked on her tongue witha pinched smile. The masked woman had consumed her entire glass and stood up to reach for more. Miss Temple slid the tray back to her—more elegantly than it had been sent—and watched as her companion pulled the decanter from the tray and poured, drank without replacing the decanter, and then to Miss Temple’s frank surprise poured yet again. The woman left the decanter where it was and only then resumed her seat.
    Feeling cunning, Miss Temple realized with a sly smile that her disapproval was misplaced, for on the contrary, the