At a corner of the room where a bookcase now stood, he measured a space where her chest of drawers might be placed.

“It’s like the first act of Figaro,” she said. “All this measuring.”

“Only—that’s for a bed.”

“A chest of drawers might be even more symbolic—don’t you think?”

He was writing numbers on a piece of paper. “No,” he said.

She smiled into the closet. She began to sing, “Cinque, dieci…” She stopped.

“Don’t stop.”

“I can’t really sing.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

She dropped a pile of magazines onto the floor. “Heavens. I’m getting so dirty. This dust—I don’t know what your maid’s been doing.”

He had gone on his knees. “I suppose these books will have to go. There won’t be anywhere else for them, after your things have been moved in.”

She dropped another magazine onto the heap.

He added, “It’s a shame.”

“It wasn’t my idea,” she said faintly, “to … move my things in.”

“No.” His head was lowered into the corner. His voice smiled. “It was my idea. One of my better ones.”

“Venti—trenta…” She had found a shoebox of bills and was looking through it. “I was allowed to sing in Pinafore once, at school.”

“What were you?”

“Oh—just a sailor. At school I was always A Sailor. Or An Onlooker, A Bystander. When we did Julius Caesar they let me call out ‘The will! The will! We’ll hear the will!’ Things like that.”

“Doesn’t sound like you,” he remarked. “Especially that bit about the will.”

“I suppose all these are paid?” She showed him the box.

“Of course.”

She replaced it on the shelf. “Once, when I desperately wanted to play Pocahontas, they made me An Indian.”

He was examining the books on the shelves. “That was a pity.”

“Yes. I had just the right hair for it. And I so wanted to get rescued by Captain John Smith.”

“It was the other way. She rescued him.”

“Oh well. It comes to the same thing.”

He sat back on his heels. “But she married John Rolfe.”

“What a lot you know,” she said.

Finding that she meant this, he remained silent.

“The chest could go in front of the books,” she suggested.

“It would make the room too small. No—I’m afraid there’s nothing for it but to get rid of them.”

He doesn’t have to make such a point about it, she thought. “It does seem a waste,” she said. “What are they?”

“Nothing special. Books I had at college.” He pulled one or two halfway out. “The Decline of the West. Green Mansions.”

“Oh, that’s so sad,” she said.

“Which?”

“Green Mansions. Every time I read it I want to sit down and cry.”

As if she reads standing up, he thought.