"There is one thing about this situation which puzzles me," Paul Drake said as he sat in his favorite leather chair, watching Perry pace back and forth across his office like a caged tiger. The lawyer had been returning to the refuge of his office after his ill-fated dinner and had run into the detective in the elevator of the Brent Building. Paul only needed to take one look at his best friend's face to know that something was horribly wrong. He soon extracted the whole story from him.

"Only one?" Perry retorted bitterly.

"Yes. How is it that you, Perry Mason, a genius in the area of human psychology, did not see this coming?"

"Excuse me?" the lawyer abruptly stopped in his walk.

"You heard me right. How long did you expect your monopoly on that girl to last?"

Perry sighed.

"I thought we would have more time-"

"Perry, you have had years."

"I know, but…"

"Perry, Della is in a class all her own. She is intelligent, well-educated, and has a wonderful sense of humor to go with her extraordinarily pretty face. I am no schoolboy, but I could have easily fallen in love with her any time these last several years, but as I suspected that you already harbored strong feelings towards her and that she was far from indifferent to you, I made sure to guard my heart. I always feared that another man would not be so scrupulous and turn her head and steal her from you, but as you never took me into your confidence until tonight I did not want to interfere."

"I wish you had. I wish someone would have talked some sense into me."

"All is not yet lost, however. Tell her how you feel! Beg her to stay when she tries to resign."

"I wish it were that simple. If she cared about me, she would not have been so easily persuaded to move back to South Dakota."

"Or, she loves you, and does not think that you return her affections. She may have decided to stop torturing herself."

"If only I could believe that!"

"There is only one way to find out," Paul Drake said, as he stood up and walked to the private door which led out of Perry's office. "If I were you, I would stop moping around here and get to the jeweler's shop before it closes."

Sooo...what will Perry do?