Anne felt oddly discontent all day and, by the evening, she was glad she had accepted Mike Bennett's invitation to dinner. She needed to be with someone like him, someone entertaining and intelligent, yet in no way threatening. That morning, when he had asked her to a concert and dinner, she had decided on the spur of the moment that it would be good for her to go out with him. She had even gone so far as to buy herself a new dress, a black sheath of real silk crepe de chine, which she had luckily found on sale. Her conscience had pricked her slightly when she paid the clerk, because she normally saved every extra penny to help with her sister Sue's college expenses. But, just this once, it seemed important to give herself a present, because, since the weekend at Ty's mountain house, she had been feeling strangely restless. Even now, as she waited for Mike to arrive, she sat on the window seat in her quaint, old-fashioned apartment and stared rather morosely at the tree-lined street below.
