The clock had just struck ten in the morning. At 16 Bingleigh Avenue in Midtown, New York, Jenny found herself in a sunlit Baroque-style building. Her blue dress trailed the floor, her hair was slightly curled, and she sat in a Baroque armchair by the window, fingers brushing the gold-thread embroidery on her sleeve and the yellow square diamond. She tentatively directed her gaze at the lady sitting across the low table.
The lady, Mrs. Ochi, was from Paris and came from a poor shepherd family. As a child, her beauty had led a wealthy old widow to take her in as a companion. Later, she married the widow's merchant nephew as his second wife. After being widowed, she married an American shipping magnate and moved to New York to settle down, but the magnate also died soon after, leaving the estate to be managed by her brother-in-law and stepson. Now in her forties, Mrs. Ochi owned the house her husband had left her, but had no control over the cash. She could only wait each month for her brother-in-law and stepson to dispense her living expenses, and live a dignified, wealthy life as they demanded, without scandal.
To earn extra pocket money, she had taken up writing and had published four romance novels with a fairly realistic style. In the past, Eliot, when he was in the Newspaper Service Department, had helped her publish her debut work. Jenny had once delivered flowers to her home on Eliot's behalf, but back then she had merely stood in the foyer, handed the flowers to the butler, and left without even a drink of water.
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