Isidore knocked with the heavy ring then waited on the front steps. Daphne, Ben—they were good friends. Old friends. Clement had reminded him that he’d broken a dinner engagement with no word of explanation. How does a man stop running? How does a man pick up his old life? He makes amends. He repairs bridges. Yesterday had been a disaster. He’d lost his head at Louisa’s. That melody. That slender woman at the harpsichord. He didn’t want to think of that encounter, or what had come after. He’d fled the house in disgrace, mood black and growing blacker. He hadn’t returned to his apartments, hadn’t stopped by the club. He’d gone to a tavern and drank his lunch—five flips, so maybe that counted as a meal. Each flip had at least part of an egg stirred into the gin, and sugar. Dinner … dinner had been more of the same. But without the eggs and sugar. Maybe I shouldn’t have ripped up that ticket. That’s what he went to sleep thinking. Maybe I should buy another. But somehow—though he woke late in the morning, head filled with sand and glass, body aching—he was determined to try again.
