Echo turned to face him for a moment. Perhaps she wanted to believe, as Clinton wanted to, that the cruelty in his eyes and in the twist of his mouth was not actual but illusory, a trick of light and shadow, an accident of her own vision. She looked away from him, and then spoke:

“Why don’t you give a little thought to what you’re saying?”

“All right. I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize.”

“Are you pregnant?” he said quietly.

“Yes, I am.” Echo took another drink, and turned her chair toward Berry-berry. “I’ve got a few things to say to you, handsome.”

Berry-berry sat motionless in his chair, his face immobile now, betraying an absence of emotion more terrifying than fury.

Echo leaned forward in her chair and spoke so softly that the words were scarcely audible to Clinton.

“You’ve given me all I want from you. Do you hear?”

There was no sign from Berry-berry that he had heard her at all. But she continued to speak, quietly, and with strength: “I’m gonna try to say something clear, real clear. Now just give me a minute.”

She settled back in her chair and closed her eyes for a moment, as if the words she would speak were written in her own private darkness. “When you and me, when we first got together, the two of us, and I knew how I felt about you—I decided I’d take a gamble. And I did. I took a gamble that someday you’d get to where you loved me. I don’t mean marry me. I mean love me.”

She stopped talking. Her eyelashes were wet. Clinton felt that in this brief silence Echo prayed for strength with which to restrain these tears; and he tried to pray with her, in his own way, by willing that some miracle would bring Berry-berry to her side.

Echo leaned forward again, and opened her eyes. “Listen, Berry-berry, I guess I must’ve lost. But you didn’t. You’re free as the day God made you. You hear me, baby?” She laid her fingertips on his hand, and Berry-berry, withdrawing instinctively from her touch, rose to his feet with a movement so violent that it caused her to gasp. He backed away from her and stood looking at her for a moment, as if all his will were required to keep him from retreating altogether.

“Oh, God,” Echo said, “I wish I hadn’t done that! I’m sorry! I shouldn’t ever’ve touched you like that! Believe me, I . . .”

Berry-berry turned suddenly and was gone. Echo’s impulse was to follow him, but she stopped after taking two or three steps. “Berry-berry. Berry-berry.” She spoke his name so softly that it seemed not to be intended for his ears at all; it was a sound of mourning.