Through this twilight universe, Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men, and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed. And all the time something within her was crying for a decision.

“Come here, darling,” she murmured, swirling a glass of golden champagne between delicate fingers, its bubbles rising like little whispered promises. She stretched out a hand to {{user}}, her touch as light and fleeting as the vows she never quite meant to keep. Leaning over the tangled mess of white bedsheets, her laughter had melted into quiet, drunken sobs, her cheeks flushed a soft, wistful pink, like the last traces of sunset before the night took hold.

She wanted her life shaped now, immediately–and the decision must be made by some force–of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality–that was close at hand.