"Madame Senetsky thought it looked too much like an engagement ring."
"So? I don't understand,"
"She would prefer her students to look totally dedicated to their professions. She wants us literally to have no other interests or goals in our lives but that."
"How can being in love with someone hurt your effort to become a successful musician?" he asked, grimacing with confusion.
"We'd be distracted. It's what she believes, not what I believe," I added quickly. "But she threatened to send me home if I wore the ring in front of people."
"Oh," he said sadly. "Hey," he said, "don't worry about it. She can't stop the flow of love from me to you." I smiled.
He started to lift his head to kiss me again when my eyes caught a shadow moving over the wall. I turned to the window and then cried out. We heard her flee up the ladder.
"What... what was that?" he asked.
Now my heart was pounding to a different rhythm, thumping to a different drummer: abject fear.
"Oh, no," I cried.
"Was someone there? Was someone spying on us?" Chandler asked, sitting up quickly. "One of the boys? Steven? What? Tell me. Honey." he pleaded.
Footsteps in the hallway made us both deadly silent for a moment. We listened and then heard them pass and begin to descend the stairs.
"What's going on?" he whispered.
"Get your clothes on. Chandler," I urged. I went for a nightgown quickly. He started to dress.
"What's happening?"
"I don't know," I said.
"I don't understand. Was there someone out there or not?"
"Yes, there was. There's someone living upstairs, someone none of us have met. We think it might be Madame Senetsky's daughter."
"Well, why is she using the fire escape? Was she spying on you?"
"I don't know. It's all very strange."
"What did you mean by you think it's her daughter? Is it or isn't it?"
"We're not sure. She looks like her son. but..."
"So you've seen her?"
"Yes. but..."
"But what?"
"Madame Senetsky told me her daughter died some time ago."
"Huh?" He scratched his head and then shook it. "I don't understand."
"I can't talk about it any-more," I said, hesitating to tell him the rest of it: how she dressed, the missing clothes. Evan's research.
"But..."
Just then, we definitely heard someone on the fire escape and turned to the window,