“People have no second chance with each other, really,” he said. “If I
were fool enough to ask you to marry me again, and you were fool enough
to do it, I should strangle you within three months afterward. Whenever
I came home, and found you serving some man tea, I’d take it for granted
that you had spent the afternoon in bed with him.”
“I know. I should never see you pick up a book, without expecting you to
fling it at my head. I suppose that is funny.”
“I suppose so. . . . But, Patricia, do you remember—”
“Peter, stop. I probably do remember, whatever you were going to ask,
but I don’t _want_ to remember. I wish you would begin to be
disagreeable. That makes it easier for me.”
He laughed. “Darling, I know exactly how you feel. If you stamped your
feet at this moment, and cursed me in Bowery accents, I could watch you
walk out of my life and be glad to see you vanish. But you sit there
looking lovely. . . . Curious, how distressing it is to be anything but
flippant. If I said, brokenly, ‘Good-bye for ever, my dear young love,’
I should feel like an imbecile. Yet I want to say something nice to
you.”
We both laughed—and Peter came across the garden, and put his head
against my knees, and his arms around them.
“Patricia, I am glad I married you when I was young. I wouldn’t have
missed it.”
I said, “Peter, my darling, damn you for making me cry. I am glad I
married you when I was young, too. And I’m sorry for every stupid thing
I ever did that hurt you.” Tears spilt down my face, and dripped on the
back of his neck, absurdly. He gave me a handkerchief, and a cigarette,
and asked if I wanted another drink.
“No, I think I want to go home, Peter; and by myself.”
“All right. Would you believe that I’m not trying to be disagreeable, if
I tell you that I hope I never see you again?”
I could understand about that. I said, “You will like me pretty well, if
you never see me for five minutes.”
“That’s it. . . . Will you kiss me, nonchalantly, Patricia, before you
go?”
I kissed him nonchalantly. He bent his head, and put his cheek against
mine, gently. It was a gesture of his that once was familiar to me. It
hurt. I wanted, more than I had wanted anything in years, to find words
to tell Peter how much I had loved him once, and how sorry I was that I
did not love him now.
He kissed my eyelids and my mouth and my throat. He lighted a cigarette,
and walked once up and down the garden. Then he said, “Patricia, will
you stay here with me tonight?”
I wanted so much—to want to stay. I wanted to feel for an hour, that I
loved Peter. I could not feel anything at all.
I said, “It just would be pretending; and I should cry, probably,
because it was not real any more; and that would make you cross.”
“Yes, and I’d treat you as outrageously as possible in the morning, I
suppose. I couldn’t help it.”
“I know. Better find me a taxi, Peter. I am going home.”
He went to find a taxi. When he came back, he said, “For God’s sake,
think of something flippant for your parting speech, darling. I have
thought of mine.”
I powdered my face, by moonlight. “All right. Tell me yours first,
Peter.”
“I left you. Now you’re leaving me. So you win the last battle.”
“That’s not very amusing, Peter.”
“Probably not.”
We walked from the garden through his darkened apartment to the street
door. Before he opened it, he said, “What is your exit line?”