Over the years Sigrid had found it easier to wear clothes of Anne's choosing for her annual duty visit south than to listen to her Grandmother Lattimore's complaints that she really wasn't trying.

Most of the clothes were too bright or too fussy for Sigrid's taste, but she paused at one that wasn't completely objectionable: a brushed cotton suit of soft moss green and a cowl-necked silk shell in rich jewel tones of purples and blues. Even Grandmother Lattimore had approved of the way she looked in that one. But the only shoes that went with the outfit were frivolous green sling-back heels, and the matching bag could barely accommodate a wallet and lace handkerchief; there was certainly no room in it for a regulation pistol, badge and note pad.

All of which brought her to her senses with a grim smile. Dithering over clothes as if Oscar Nauman were Rhett Butler and she Scarlett O'Hara instead of a New York cop! As if ugly ducklings really could become swans. What had got into her?

Without pausing to analyze the question, Sigrid flipped back to the shapeless gray pantsuit and dressed with rapid efficiency. Her chin was high, and all her defenses were in place when she emerged from her bedroom.

To find him gone.

Only dirty dishes in her sink, and a note on the counter to advise that he'd eaten his breakfast with relish, thank you, and hers was in the oven. She opened the oven door and took out a tender omelet and buttered toast, still warm on a plate.

Toast, yes, she thought, but the eggs are going down the garbage disposal.

Curiosity made her try a bite.

It was delicious.

Bemused, she poured herself another cup of coffee and perched on a step stool to eat the whole thing. Anchovies on her steak last night. And now jam with eggs.

To cap it all, the little squares of red that she'd been trying to puzzle out last night lay in perfect alignment on the counter-from the darkest red to the lightest pink in nine even steps. Damn the man!

13

ACROSS town Andrea Ross was-like Sigrid-deliberating carefully over her choice of clothes but with a difference. Impractical shoes were very much a part of the picture she wanted to create. She was going to stage a deliberate and full-fledged retreat into femininity, and the morning sunlight was an innocent conspirator. It promised a spring day warm enough for shoes that were nothing more than delicate straps of braided straw and matched a straw-colored gather skirt that fluttered softly around her legs. She topped the cotton skirt with a heavily embroidered Mexican peon shirt and studied the total effect in her mirror. Getting there.

Next she skillfully manipulated a styling wand to transform her sensible short brown hair into a crown of ringlets, then made up her eyes to look as wide and appealing as a fawn's. A faint touch of blusher to her cheeks and another critical examination of her reflection.

Perfect!

She looked cool and poised enough to deliver scholarly lectures yet soft and womanly. Not helpless exactly but with no hard career edges showing. No single-minded ambitions, either, and certainly no vengeful thoughts.

Must watch the lips though, she decided, knowing that her lips looked too determined in repose, her eyes too shrewd.

Think soft, she told herself.

But her thoughts kept slipping away to the raise a promotion would mean. The grueling debts of her post graduate years were almost repaid. There was beginning to be enough money for clothes, a decent apartment, books. The promotion she had expected-had earned, damn it-would have meant enough at last to spend a summer in France. As a true art lover; not a penny-pinching student. A summer to lie in fields of red poppies if she wished and drink in the soaring lines of Chartres Cathedral until that abiding thirst for perfection, unsatisfied since childhood, was finally slaked. She wanted to experience at last a direct response to what she saw with no worries of dates, theories or the pressures of a doctoral dissertation to come between herself and the art.

She had yearned for such a summer with an almost physical ache, and Riley Quinn had nearly cheated her of it for another few years by passing her over for Jake Saxer. As she remembered the blind fury she'd felt last week when she'd heard that Saxer had been recommended for promotion, Andrea Ross caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and was chilled by its granite grimness.

Think soft, she warned herself and tried to remember how innocence smiled.

In the two-family brick house he owned within walking distance of the university, Professor Albert Simpson's tea and toast grew cold as he contemplated promotion to deputy chairman. Although he did not possess Riley Quinn's outside reputation, he was the most senior art historian, and no one questioned his command of his subject.

No one respected it, either, he told himself wryly. No one except young Wade. On the other hand, he had no enemies; no one disliked him strongly enough to vote against him, so the balloting should be a mere formality. The younger historians would probably look upon his tenure in the chair as a caretaker regime, soon to be ended by his retirement. It would give them time to square off at each other for a real battle when he stepped down.

The last time that chair had been vacant, they'd offered it to him first; but he'd turned it down, not wanting the encumbrances of administrative duties that would take him away from the classroom and eat into his precious research time. His refusal had opened up a scramble among the other younger historians, and Riley Quinn had emerged victorious-Quinn, who'd begun by using the title to further his extracurricular career; who had never neglected an opportunity to sneer at the man whose stepping aside had made it possible for him to hold that title; and who had over the years finally grown so arrogant that he'd actually commandeered a class-room teacher, Jake Saxer, to be his personal researcher for the latest of those books he churned out. Catchpenny, simplified popularizations of the passing art scene. As if what passed for art today needed further simplification!

Professor Simpson added another spoonful of sugar to his tea and sipped meditatively. It was stone-cold now, but that was so usual he barely noticed.

At most he was only four years from retirement, and in all the previous years he'd truly never desired a title position or rank over his peers; but Quinn had shown an advantage to the title that hadn't occurred to him before; and now that it was to be offered to him again, he would take it this time. Not that he would abuse it as Riley Quinn had. David Wade had too much character to be used as Quinn had used that fawning toad Saxer. But as a colleague-a collaborator-as the son he'd never had. Somehow he would use his newly acquired power to keep Wade here. At last his book would be finished.

He reached for the telephone and dialed Wade's number from memory. When there was no answer, he consulted the directory for a different number, then smiled indulgently at the appetites of youth as Sandy Keppler's lilting voice said, "It's for you, darling."

Sandy closed the bathroom door with an indulgent smile of her own. She'd never seen David so embarrassed before.

And it's rather sweet when you think about it, she told herself, that he cares enough for your reputation to stammer out some corny explanation about coming over here for breakfast. ('She makes terrific French toast, sir,') she'd heard him say as she was leaving the room.)

As if Professor Simpson, who knew all about the dissipations of classical Rome, would be shocked by a simple bedding down before marriage. David was such an innocent about some things.

She brushed her long yellow hair vigorously, touched her lips with pink lipstick and added a hint of blue shadow to her eyelids.