“It seems to me a great coincidence that it should have been Lila.”
“That’s what it was. You must believe it.”
“Why was she there? That’s something I’ve been unable to understand. She couldn’t have known where I had gone.”
“I’d arranged to meet her. We were going to look for you together. I’ll tell you all about it when you are better.”
“Well, I’ll believe that she’s innocent if you tell me to, but I don’t want to see her again. Not ever again.”
“That’s good.”
“If she comes here to see me, I’ll have them send her away.”
“She won’t come. I’ve told her it would be better if she didn’t.”
“Do you really want me to come back to you?”
“If you want to.”
“I want to, but I don’t know if it would be wise. How will it end?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think it will end well. I think so.”
“We’ll see.”
“How is George?”
“George is fine. He sends his regards. He’ll come to see you when you’re stronger.”
“I’ll be glad to see him. I would be glad to see Mr. Brennan too, if he cares to come.”
“Perhaps I can bring him one time.”
“Did you have any trouble over the fight in the hotel room?”
“No. No trouble. It didn’t last long. I knocked the man out, whoever he was, and when he came to, he went away. I took your things, as I said, and paid your bill. I had heard the ambulance in the street, but I didn’t know what it was for. When I got outside, they were just putting you into it.”
“I’ll tell you about the man sometime.”
“You don’t have to. I don’t care about him.”
“I’ve caused you a great deal of trouble, haven’t I?”
“Never mind that.”
“I can’t understand why you bother with me.”
“Maybe it’s because you remind me, for some reason, of someone else I once knew.”
“The girl you told me about that you were in love with?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad I remind you of her. She must have been very nice if you were in love with her. I hope that you get to be in love with me too, and I with you. I’ll try to make it come out so.”
“You tried once. Remember? It didn’t work.”
“I’ll try again.”
“It’s a good thing to keep trying.”
The hand of her unbroken arm was lying near him on the bed, and he took the hand in his and held it. They sat silently for a long time as the room grew dark in the short and sudden winter dusk.
“I’d better be going,” he said at last.
“I don’t want you to go.”
“I’d better. I was told to stay only a little while.”
“I wish you could stay longer.”
“Perhaps I can stay longer tomorrow.”
“Would you be willing to kiss me before you go?”
“Yes.”
He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips and then stood up. She looked very small and frail, he thought, with her head in bandages and her right arm in a plaster cast. The cast gave her a kind of comic touch, an incitement at once to laughter and tears.
“Good-by,” he said.
“Until tomorrow,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, “Until tomorrow.”
He went out and she lay quietly in the dark room. She thought for a while that she would surely cry, but she didn’t because she couldn’t, and pretty soon she went to sleep and wakened only once for a few minutes in the night, and in the morning, when she turned her head on her pillow and looked out the window, she could see the black branch aflame in the sunlight.