Three short stories, each focused on a man and a woman. The first is set in the 1940s, the other two in the 1920s. In "The Man in a Brooks Brothers Suit," a businessman of about 40 plies a younger Leftist women with liquor aboard a train. They spend the night together, and he decides he's in love with her; she plays along. In "Dusk Before Fireworks," Kit, a youthful flapper, arrives at Hoby's classy flat intent on an evening of passion, but a constantly-ringing telephone interrupts each embrace. In "Hills Like White Elephants," a couple traveling in Spain discuss her pregnancy: he wants things to stay as they are, she doesn't quite know what she wants.—<[email protected]>