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early morning—the woman and the animal, both of them solitary, two stragglers separated from the pack, transfixed, staring, panicked into immobility. The fox's eyes were oddly lit, as if glittering pennies had got into its sockets; its ears stood straight up; its white tail hung low, like a shamed flag; its flanks trembled. A nervous wild thing. It twitched the upper muscle of its long snout—she saw the zigzag glint of teeth, the dangerous grin of ambush. How beautiful it was!
    And the voices in the pillow persisted, growing louder with every repeated cry:
my double, my secret self, our secret partnership
... In her dry-hearted bed Lilian held up her two hands and matched them one against the other, thumb to thumb, and observed how persuasively, how miraculously, they made an almost identical pair.
    ***
    What was most remarkable was that there was never a contest between them. They were not destined to be rivals or champions of rivals. In her very first note Theodora had insisted on this. The note was also an invitation: was Lilian fond of theater, and would she be willing to accompany Theodora to the Lyceum Tuesday next, to see Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Lady Macbeth? Lilian had promised to have dinner with her mother that evening, and how could she disappoint her? But she did, and her mother wept. Similar disappointments followed, until her mother's mood hardened still more, and her tears increased: it was nearly like losing another child, she said, since she was left to be abandoned and alone, with that unfeeling Mr. Conrad claiming Lilian's nights as well, and what a cruel waste of a young woman's life!
    It was so jolly to be with Theodora—she truly was like a sister. In the theater, at the most shivery instant, when Lady Macbeth was gazing at her bloody hand and muttering "Out, damned spot," Theodora drew Lilian into her arms to shelter her from the fright of it, and this time really did kiss her, on her left temple, on her cheek, on her chin, and almost, almost on her lips. And Theodora had so many ideas for outings, some of them (or so it struck Lilian) just on the edge of risk or even threat. It became a teasing commonplace between them that Theodora was bold and Lilian was faint-hearted—though it was only Theodora who did the teasing, as if Lilian's reticence were merely a sham, since of course Lilian was the daring one: hadn't she agreed to come ice-skating, when she had never skated in all her life before? Teetering on the ice, Lilian's unaccustomed feet seemed to belong to someone else—the blades skittered uncontrollably, and her heart in its unfamiliar cavern vibrated madly—but Theodora's strong saving embrace was firm at her waist, and the warmth of her breath was feathery under her ear, laughing: "Oh my brave Lily, you're so red in the face you look positively painted!" It was the first time Theodora had called her Lily; she did not protest. After this, an excursion to the New Forest, where freshly falling snow obliterated the paths, and ownerless horses roamed free and untrammeled, sidling toward the human intruders and sniffing after crumbs with their dark vast smoldering nostrils and yolk-colored eye-whites and rolling imbecile eyeballs and gigantic mindless heads, as menacing as the massive mechanisms of train wheels seen too close.
    There were parts of London Theodora knew, shadowy corners Lilian had never ventured into, and incense-stung cellars where motley strangers squabbled in raucous remote accents, like hotheaded revelers at an incomprehensible carnival. And sometimes the carnival turned up in Theodora's rooms at the top of an old row house, with a skylight, and on the black-papered walls murky blurry paintings that looked as if they had been dropped in a tub of water and got smeared all over. Women in rippling shawls, gripping the strawlike stems of wine glasses, moved stubbornly from painting to painting: each fiercely stained rectangle seemed an argument to be won. But