I stiffened. Honest I could feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck like a dog's that is going to get into a fight. I turned around with the percolator in my hand. My eyes were so bleary I could barely see him but there he was, a little smooth olivefaced guy in a new spring overcoat and a taffy colored fedora. Brown eyes, eyebrow mustache. Oval face without an expression in the world.

We didn't have time to speak before Eileen's voice was screeching at us from the bed. ``Joseph Maria Ballestre meet Francis Xavier Bowman. Exboyfriend meet exhusband.'' She gave the nastiest laugh I ever heard. ``And don't either of you forget that I'm not any man's property. If you want to fight, go down on the sidewalk.'' She was enjoying the situation. Imagine that.

Eileen was a psychologist all right. Instead of wanting to sock the poor bastard I found myself having a fellow-feeling for him. Maybe he felt the same way. I never felt such a lowdown hound in my life. First thing I knew he was in the kitchenette cooking up the breakfast and I was handing Eileen her coffee-cup and she was lying there handsome as a queen among her courtiers.

I couldn't face Thelma after that night. I didn't even have the nerve to call her on the telephone. I wrote her that I'd met up with Eileen and that old bonds had proved too strong and asked her to send my clothes down by express. Of course I had to give her Eileen's address, but she never came near us. All she did was write me a pleasant little note about how it was beautiful while it lasted but that now life had parted our ways and it was goodbye forever. She never said a word about the fifty dollars. She added a postscript begging me to be careful about drinking. I must know that that was my greatest weakness underlined three times.