She came around the corner from where she’d parked the La Salle onto Copley Square and waited to cross. She kept the thought of Walter Vail a little apart from her where she could observe it without confusion. She marveled at how the time she’d been with him was fixed in her mind — his fingers on the hinge of the head of the brass owl, the rap on the french door windows, his brushing snow from her collar. How amusing that I still remember it so well. How surprising that I call it amusing.

The lobby of the hotel was still — no people in evening dress, no orchestra sounds from the ballroom as there had been the last time, and as there had been long before for the tea dances she’d gone to after the war. The desk clerks paid her no attention. She had never been up in the rooms and didn’t know where the elevators were. She came forward tentatively. Ah, there they were. The elevator man nodded his little cube hat. Lilian told him what floor.

She got off and started down the hall. The walls were all light padding, and she felt wet and dark. She noticed the room numbers going the wrong way and turned back. Tearing toward her from down the other end, past the dots of lights and damask wallpaper, was a woman in a fur coat. Behind her at a distance was the more composed figure of a middle-age man, his head reared back with concern. The woman darted into the closing doors which shut just as the man came up. He pressed the button repeatedly, then turned on his heel and went back to his room.

Lilian came to the number she was looking for and rapped. No one answered right away. What if he weren’t there? Then there he was.

He stepped back to let her in. It occurred to her she’d never seen him where he’d actually lived, had never seen how his rooms might be arranged, but that wasn’t something she could do anything about now.

There were some hard upholstered chairs and a love seat which he stood beside. He didn’t kiss her hello, she noticed that. Sit, he said, running his hand over her hair, standing behind her.

I ran into a friend in the lobby, he said. Someone I knew in Paris. I hope you don’t mind — she’s coming up for a cocktail.

Lilian turned to see his face.

You’re angry with me, he said. She doesn’t know a soul here, and I felt — well, she is an old friend.

Then I ought to go, Lilian said.

No, please, said Walter Vail. You mustn’t. I mean, I couldn’t not ask her up. You see that, don’t you?

Lilian said she did, and gazed down at her hands.

I mean to say, how could it matter?