Neville describes his long friendship with Alice Bentley -- known to intimates as 'Ali Ben' -- a very dear elderly friend in New York City who moved in the circle of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and kept a studio at Carnegie Hall until her death. He recalls that back in 1939, when war broke out in Europe, he spent two weeks staying at her place near the Canadian border, which he offers as background before telling a story she later brought him about a mysterious appearance.