At three on a Wednesday afternoon, Sylvie Bancroft burst energetically through the revolving door of a green-glass University City office building with plashing fountains and marble foyer. She wore her corporate garb: dark jacket and skirt, white silk blouse, tiny gold necklace; black pumps, conservative nylons, light make-up.Sunshine twirled in her hair as she strode confidently, with a briefcase in one hand and a hardcopy software manual in the other.

A man said to her: "You have such a glow on your face!" and she ignored him as she swept through the lobby with both arms full. Nodding to the receptionist, she stepped into the elevator, whose gold doors opened and shut for her with a faint ding!. Alone in the elevator, she looked eagerly as the numbered floor indicators winked on and off one by one as she looked forward to the final paycheck for several months' hard work.

Sylvie was an experienced software engineer and she'd been working solo for the past four years as an outside consultant. She saw herself as a woman on the go. She worked hard, delivered on schedule, got paid well, and treasured both her independence and her top-rated professional reputation.

She stepped from the elevator and walked down a carpeted hall to her client's office, ready to deliver a major subsystem for their payroll services.

During all this, she retained a disinterested ghostly memory of the man in the lobby, if only out of residual annoyance. Men came on to women, and that was how it worked, except for the maneuvering women did to be in the way when they wanted to be. It was all part of the plan. It was nice sometimes to be admired, but often it wasn't. With the red-haired man in the lobby, who did have an exceptionally big smile and coolly controlled, sincere yet winking eyes, she did not have time to make a judgment. She clearly had not maneuvered into his way; rather she had almost run him over on her way to the elevator. She had her own annoyance rate with wolf-whistlers and awkward guys to deal with, as did every woman, and Sylvie knew her strengths and weaknesses all too intensely, as did most women. Her rate of being propositioned was about average; maybe if she flattered herself, a little above. She was slender, with a fresh face and long black hair. When she dressed up for a dinner or a dance?with contact lenses instead of the heavy horn eyeglasses, with the right makeup and a gown and high heels?she knew she was a knockout. In her free time, she jogged and surfed and bicycled, which kept her complexion ruddy and glowing. Actually, despite the French surname, she also had some recessive alleles for dark skin by way of Cuba and perhaps Africa, but her hair was straight and her eyes were gray-blue; anyway, that helped her look tanned without the U.V. risk from the sun. She was a vegetarian, with a weakness for chocolate.

Thirty minutes later, after receiving handshakes, congratulations, and a huge check, she made her way back to the lobby downstairs. As she stepped off the elevator, she nearly ran into a wall of flowers. Actually, it was a large bouquet, and she stopped in her tracks. Red roses. They lowered, revealing the face of the man with the seductive eyes. "Hi!" His teeth were clean and big. "You have such a glow." He shook the flowers. "I took the liberty of buying these so I could learn why you look so utterly radiant."

She felt the still-wet, paper-wrapped roses against her arm, the flowers damp against her exposed skin in the v of her blouse. She smelled damp rose oil and closed her eyes. "No way," she said, pushing the flowers back.

"I won't take no for an answer." He stood aside holding the roses, and she saw in his eyes that he would run after her.