Elegy For a Lady.

"A Man enters a small boutique to buy a gift for his young mistress who is facing an operation. He finds himself talking to the owner about his depression over unanswered phone calls to his loved one & of his fear that her condition might be terminal. The owner consoles him and reminds him that perhaps the young lady is trying to spare him the pain of 'her pain'. Other things are the difference in their ages, his bad marriage, the emptiness of material success without love behind it, having no children -- the frustration of being unable to make a true and total commitment to another person. It is almost as though the owner (female, or could be male in today's social standings) might be--or has become--the absent mistress. As the play ends the Man and the Proprietress embrace, two strangers grateful for the small miracle which, if only for a brief moment, has let them share closeness always hoped for but seldom achieved.