They were silent for a moment. She rested her hand on one of the thick, embossed Chinese roses of the rug. “Would you rather not have gone, then, tonight?”

“Infinitely.”

“You only had to say so.”

“You couldn’t have gone alone.”

“I could.”

“All right, you could—but you’d have sulked for days.” He turned her face slightly to him. “You’re practically crying as it is.”

“I always look that way.”

“When you’re with me, at any rate.” He let his hand drop. “There were women with hats on at the party. And young couples who talked about their children. Oh, and an old lunatic who wanted to revive Swinburne.”

“Browning,” she said.

“Browning—was that it? So it was. Then there was Evie, of course, feeling sorry for you because of me. Because I’m so disagreeable.” He laughed. “At least, it wasn’t as bad as the last party they had—someone actually sang at that, if you remember.”

“I do remember. Yes.”

“And you played the piano.”

“Yes.”

He smiled pleasantly at the recollection. “You were terrible,” he said.

“Was I?”

“Darling, you always play so badly—didn’t you know that?”

“I didn’t know you thought so,” she said, reflecting that the knowledge must now be with her permanently. She sighed. “Theodore, why do you have to do this?”

“Why?” He looked over her head for a moment, as if the question arose for the first time and required consideration. “For that matter, why anything? Why are you here? And why is your earring in the other room? Why, in fact, do you allow this to continue?”

“Eventually, I suppose, I won’t.” Her voice had taken on a conversational note. “A matter of will power, probably—of making oneself want something else.”

“Perhaps you don’t even know what else to want.”

“I think I might rather like to come first with someone—after themselves, of course. And it does seem a waste, this love, this thing everyone needs, this precious commodity—it could be going to someone who would use it properly.”

“Perhaps, then, that’s all you want? Someone to give love to—a sort of repository?”

“Perhaps. No, something more reciprocal. Only, starting over again in love is such a journey—like needing a holiday but not wanting to be bothered with packing bags and making reservations. So much trouble—being charming and artful, finding ways to pretend less affection than one feels, and in the end not succeeding, because one doesn’t really profit from experience; one merely learns to predict the next mistake. No, I just can’t be bothered at present.” She shifted her weight and, turning, laid her arm across his knees. He bent forward and smoothed the hair back from her forehead. “So there you are,” she told him. “It’s all a question of inertia. I stay because leaving would require too much effort.”