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A pretty, elegantly dressed widow of not-quite middle age, Tanis Judique enters Babbitt\'s life when she comes to look for an apartment. Babbitt is immediately attracted to her, but not until he makes an unsuccessful pass at a young manicurist, and fails as a political rebel, does he take the enormous--and in Zenith, dangerous--step of having an affair.
Compared to Babbitt, Tanis is cultured and well educated. But in some ways she isn\'t that superior to the rest of Zenith. She snobbishly hopes that Babbitt belongs to the elite Union Club. Her friends, who call themselves \"The Bunch,\" like to believe they\'re brave rebels against Zenith society, but in fact they\'re as flighty and thoughtless, and probably as foolish, as any member of the Booster\'s Club.
Eventually, Babbitt begins to think of Tanis as dull and unattractive, little better than his wife, and he breaks off the affair. When, in a moment of desperation, he returns to see her, she is cool and distant toward him.
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