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best she determine whether he was the way of Oscar Wilde, who if she recalled correctly had said that going to a whore was like eating chewed mutton, a description she found objectionable. Maybe she could venture a Lure and see what reaction it caused. But Ploys and Lures could go off all over the place. Could go off in one’s face. Not that she always resisted the unforeseeable. Knowing what was going on in a conversation was part of her training as an international civil servant, and also, was a way of becoming a woman to whom nice things happened.
    There was no reason, she argued, why one couldn’t nudge Compulsive Revelation along by using a Lure. Edith Campbell Berry plunged on.
    â€˜Oscar Wilde did, however, go with women — I remember reading somewhere that he said going with a whore in Paris was like eating chewed mutton. And he fathered Vyvyan with two y s and two v s.’
    She felt that Ambrose could either find this amusing, or find it appalling that a woman should tell such an anecdote, or find the idea of a carnal experience with a woman beyond his knowledge or unimportant to his experience or he could find it objectionable as a way for Wilde to speak about a woman, about a forlorn person. Or he could pretend to any one of these positions.
    Ambrose said nothing, but nodded.
    That was not revealing. The Lure had flopped.
    She struggled on. ‘I find it rather appalling, that a man of alleged high sensibility should speak that way of another human being, a forlorn person, that he should speak that way of a human encounter …’
    Say it, Edith, say it.
    â€˜â€¦ that he should speak that way of a carnal encounter.’ That was the best she could do.
    Ambrose’s face became alert. ‘Why, yes, that’s my response exactly. I’m so glad, I’m so glad that you didn’t find it amusing. The way you told it seemed to suggest that you found it amusing. It’s not amusing at all.’
    Which established that Ambrose was a person of fine sensibility but did not establish whether he was the way of Oscar Wilde. Why was it that she could not tell from the conversational clues? Was it his diplomatic training or was it that she had trouble understanding the British? Sometimes the nature of a man was revealed by the gesture and line of his talk, although she and her friends back home now agreed that one could only sometimes tell .
    â€˜How do you account for him having gone with a whore in Paris when he was so definitely the other way?’ She felt this question would cause him to jump in one direction or another. Into her life or out of her life.
    â€˜Oh, I suspect that he was just revisiting, going back to that way to see if it was as unacceptable as he recalled it, or not the right way for him.’
    â€˜It would be distasteful for a man such as Wilde? Distasteful to go with a woman?’
    He looked directly across at her. Perhaps he was now aware that he was being investigated. ‘I imagine so.’
    Was that it then? Was the use of the word ‘imagine’ a way of saying that he had no personal knowledge or feelings which could be brought to bear on this matter?
    She pushed on. ‘It is a line that cannot be crossed, do you think? Not happily?’
    His face had become unrelaxed. He stared out of the window into the snowy fields. Ambrose was not at ease with this Probe.
    She was tempted to talk away from the subject now, and go to lighter things, but she held back, feeling that because of his earlier flirting that she was justified in being curious, and in using the Way of the Silent Void to see what it might now elicit. She refused to relieve him from his subject, kept looking at him for a response.
    He turned his eyes to hers.
    â€˜Oh, there are men who can cross the line back and forth, so to speak.’ He tried to say this lightly, but it came out unsteadily.
    Edith was unsure whether he was speaking of himself but he was revealing