"No, no thank you." He said, "You are busy," looking at the script.
"I didn't get beyond the first line."
He picked if up and read: "Enter Louise. Louise: I heard a child crying."
"Can I stay a little?" he asked with a gentleness that was more Martins than Rollo.
"I wish you would." He slumped down on the divan, and he told me a long time later (for lovers talk and reconstruct the smallest details if they can find a listener) that there it was he took his second real look at her. She stood there as awkward as himself in a pair of old flannel trousers which had been patched badly in the seat: she stood with her legs firmly straddled as though she were opposing someone and was determined to hold her ground—a small rather stocky figure with any grace she had folded and put away for use professionally.
"One of those bad days?" he asked.
"It's always bad about this time." She explained: "He used to look in, and when I heard your ring, just for a moment, I thought ..." She sat down on a hard chair opposite him and said, "Please talk. You knew him. Just tell me anything."
And so he talked. The sky blackened outside the window while he talked. He noticed after a while that their hands had met. He said to me, "I never meant to fall in love, not with Harry's girl."
"When did it happen?" I asked him.
"It was very cold and I got up to close the window curtains. I only noticed my hand was on hers when I took it away. As I stood up I looked down at her face and she was looking up. It wasn't a beautiful face—that was the trouble. It was a face to live with, day in, day out. A face for wear. I felt as though I'd come into a new country where I couldn't speak the language. I had always thought it was beauty one loved in a woman. I stood there at the curtains, waiting to pull them, looking out. I couldn't see anything but my own face, looking back into the room, looking for her. She said, 'And what did Harry do that time?' and I wanted to say, 'Damn Harry. He's dead. We both loved him, but he's dead. The dead are made to be forgotten.' Instead of course all I said was, What do you think? He just whistled his old tune as if nothing was the matter,' and I whistled it to her as well as I could. I heard her catch her breath, and I looked round and before I could think is this the right way, the right card, the right gambit?—I'd already said, 'He's dead. You can't go on remembering him for ever.'"
She said, "I know (я знаю), but perhaps something will happen first (но, возможно, что-то случится прежде)."