He silenced her with a kiss, then said, “Now is not the time for fear.”

How wonderful her touch was, yet in itself it meant nothing. To touch life’s secrets is all that matters. Their words were lost in sighs, the silent language of the night; a song of harmony seemed to herald a better life, and their intermingled breaths warmed a heart stricken with cold. The darkness was free of peering eyes. The heart could relax and rejoice triumphantly. He sighed with the fullness of pleasure, he sighed with relaxation, but then, dear God, he sighed with weariness and distress. He looked into the black night and wondered where ecstasy was. Where had Margaret gone?

He returned to the nest discontented. She faced him with rigid features, he smiled in greeting, and they remained standing for an uncomfortable minute. Then he flung himself on the couch, saying, “I’m sorry.”

“There is no need to invent excuses.” She walked back and forth across the room, and then sat in a chair near him.

“It’s been clear to me that you’ve needed a change.”

“Things aren’t that simple.”

Unable to control her anxiety, she said, “I’m not going to conduct a cross-examination. Just one simple question. Have we failed?”

He answered truthfully, but wearily. “No one can match you. I’m sure of that.”

She looked off into space. “Were you with a woman?”

He hesitated a moment before answering, “To tell you the truth, I’m not yet cured of the illness.”

She spoke sharply for the first time. “An illness whose only cure is a woman!” Then she resumed her calm tone. “All I can offer you is love, so if you refuse it, all will end.” She observed his silence with a kind of desperation, and then went on. “Fickle passions in the young can be cured; in wise men like you they can’t.”

His eyes wandered hopelessly around the room. “Am I insane?”

“Oddly enough, your personality doesn’t seem unstable.”

“But I’m accused of insanity because of my behavior.”

She burst out, “If you mean living with me, then go back to your wife.”

“I have no wife.”

“Then I’ll go. My situation’s easier than your wife’s since I can always get a job and a place to stay.”

Her words stung him, almost causing him to shout, “Go!” but instead he stretched out his legs and closed his eyes.

“So you were with a woman?”

He answered with annoyance, “You know.”

“Who?”

“A woman.”

“But who is she?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You knew her before knowing me?”

“We’d met casually.”

“Do you love her?”

“No.”

“Then why did you go out with her?”

He shrugged.

“Maybe you felt a sudden desire?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you always give in to your desire?”

“Not always.”

“When?”

He was getting vexed. “When I feel ill.”

“Are you a womanizer?”

“No.”