Colette American style -- that is the analogy that comes to mind, in reading this skilfully handled story of Lesbianism. The style suggests a blend of Colette with Kay Doyle -- crisp, pungent, swift-moving, essentially modernistic with its elimination of quotation marks and other extraneous matter. The setting is San Francisco and there is a nostalgic quality in the recapturing of the singular charm of that city. Not for your conservative reader -- deftly as the subject is handled there is no evasion of issues, no cloaking of fact, and there is an undercurrent of tragic implications in its very understatement.