But on Monday afternoon, when Quillen laid her brush down on her palette and left her drawing board to answer the doorbell, disaster struck again. Miss Deidre Smythe (Smythe, not Smith), president of the Junior League, Mrs. Desmond Cassil’s bridge partner, and the bad apple in Quillen’s barrel of tenants, stood in the hall. Her severely styled hairdo was as blue as the knit walking suit she wore, and her sharp, ferretlike nose wrinkled distastefully at Quillen’s faded jeans and paint-stained, oversize denim shirt. “Obviously you are busy, Miss McCain, so I shall make this brief.” She opened the black leather purse clutched in her liver-spotted fingers, shut it with a snap that made Quillen start, and handed her an embossed beige envelope. “I am vacating my apartment forthwith. I realize, since I am breaking my lease, that I forfeit the damage deposit placed on the premises. I hope you will find a good use for it.” Her agate-hard brown eyes flicked dismissively over Quillen’s clothes again, her nose twitched, and she marched up the stairs, her spine regimental straight.
