Back to prettifying the room and Till There Was You.

Constance hummed as she picked up The Dance with care and proceeded to hang it in its new location. She walked around to the front of the desk to examine her favorite painting from a distance and make sure it was straight. But as she did, something caught her eye and the humming stopped.

Is that a hole?

She hadn’t seen it before. Constance stepped back around for closer inspection. She slid a finger into the opening, then pulled it out. She turned her chair and sat down, now a few inches below eye-level with that strange little hole. A glance back at the stairway confirmed she was still alone, so Constance half stood and leaned forward.

Part of the yellow armchair came into view. That was the chair she’d sat in four days earlier, uncertain but hopeful, and the one that would be occupied by today’s first client in less than an hour. The light of the floor lamp that had perhaps been left on all night illuminated the empty seat.

Constance sat back. Hmm, she thought. And that was the last thing that went through her mind before a door opened above her left shoulder.

Constance was on her feet and facing front in an instant. The chair remained facing the wall.

“Dr. Kellerman, good morning!” The greeting echoed off the bare walls, as the bleary-eyed man descended the stairs from his apartment, leaning on the handrail.

Constance smiled again, wider than ever. She hadn't seem him in three nights and two whole days. An eternity, more like.

But what happened to that sexy mustache and goatee? Now he looked so ... young.

“Morning,” he said. “It’s good to--”

The doctor stopped mid-stride on the next to last step and stared past the top of Constance's head.

The rest of her smile vanished, as his expression hardened.

“What have you done?"

During the past several days, Constance had often felt her heart race a bit, but now she thought it may have just stopped altogether. Her eyes were cemented to his, though she wanted to look anywhere else.

“No, I didn’t do that,” she told the doctor, reaching around her neck to point over her shoulder. “I just noticed it.”

“Where’s my painting!”

As Joseph approached the side of the desk and the shaken young woman behind it, the sudden rush of adrenaline turning his ordinarily calm, almost deadpan face into something fearsome, he noticed Marta’s tantrum in oil paint leaning against the wall. He grabbed it and shoved it at Constance. “Put this back up.”

“Dr. Kellerman, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you, I just ... I’m sorry.”

As she stood there holding the painting at arm's length, Constance looked to the floor, where her stomach had already fallen. This was not at all how it was supposed to be.

Joseph too stared at the floor in silence.

When Dr. Kellerman began to speak again, Constance heard the familiar voice of the gentle man she worshipped.

“It’s all right,” he sighed. “Really. It’s just, that painting was a gift. It wouldn’t be right to take it down. Not yet.” And that was all the explanation Joseph was able to give.

He said, “I apologize, Miss Fairhart,” and reached out to touch the side of her head.

Dr. Kellerman drew back his hand. Without another word between them, he walked around to the other side of the desk and disappeared into his office, as Constance lowered herself into her chair.

When the shock subsided a bit and she was able to think again, she didn’t know what to think. M. VonSchlossberg and Dr. Kellerman? Could they have been a couple?

Constance shook her head.

Then she reconsidered.

Well, M was the daughter of a great man, and he was a psychiatrist, too, and Dr. Kellerman had gone to Harvard, so obviously he and Dr. Von Schlossberg were friends. So that did make sense enough. Maybe M had been having a terrible day. After all, there are more than two sides to most everything. Especially people.

Okay, so they'd been a couple. But what had happened? Dr. Kellerman said she’d been made a better offer.

Aaah, thought Constance. But wouldn’t he rather get rid of the painting, then? Or at least put it away maybe. He’d acted more like M had died.

Constance gasped. Oh, that poor woman. And poor, bereaved Dr. Kellerman!

Still, though, what a hideous painting.

Minutes later, Constance was steady enough to stand. She removed The Dance and reluctantly hung M’s painting where it had been. And as she did, Constance noticed that curious little hole was no longer visible. Not unless one gave that bad excuse for a piece of art a nudge to the left.