The mismatches, not-quite-conflicts, both slight and substantial, over the coming months were perhaps inevitable in the face of their very different backgrounds. The age gap of twenty-five years was heightened by the disparity in their professional standing: Shirley’s writing life was just beginning—her first stories had only recently been published—whereas Francis had fourteen books, with another due later that year. And though neither had come from an especially privileged background, Francis had certainly had the kind of formal education that allowed him to move seamlessly into the elevated cultural circles that had opened up to him through his first marriage, while Shirley’s early life had been sorely lacking in such qualities and opportunities, and she had acquired whatever she had much more recently and solely through her own efforts. And yet they were both struck by the connection that sparked between them that first evening; their shared tastes—with Taste itself, honed through assiduous application, so essential to both—and interests, energies, and capacities. They would be married at the end of the year; the complications between them were also perhaps the basis of what would go on to become the only mature and sustained love affair in Shirley’s life. It was, in a sense, what she had always dreamed of.