“All you have to do is listen, Joe. What I wanted to tell you was that before the telephone rang last night, you and I were playing—isn’t that what it was?”

“I guess. I don’t know.”

“It isn’t possible. I saw it first, that’s all. It would have been fine until we fell asleep, but then we would have awakened all confused. If you had slept with me last night, what would you be thinking about now?”

He knew himself. He knew the way he would be, but he did not see the point of picking at it this way.

“It would be nice for me if you said it,” she said quietly.

“I’d be thinking about you, Norma. You know I would.”

“You took the harshness out of your voice. Thank you. You’re not as tough as you want people to believe.”

It seemed as if she wanted him to comment on that, but then she coughed. “I can’t take the chance of being confused again. When you were on the telephone, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I could lie to you now and say that the whole thing was some sort of temporary aberration and wasn’t the real me, or that I wasn’t playing and you misled me about what we were doing, but part of my trouble is that I’ve never learned how to live with liars. I want to be able to live with myself. Someday my baby will be looking to me for clues to the way to behave, and if I really want to do a good job with him, I’d better start practicing now. It’s a lousy motivation for my own personal acts, but my baby is going to have his father’s death hanging over his head all his life, and I have to try to make a balance for sanity.”

“Sure. Anybody would understand that.”

“I could have an affair with you. I could even be your mistress, if you wanted. If I let myself. Last night I saw those things coming and I had to get out any way I could. So I said those things. I said them deliberately. I like you. You know I do.”

“I know.”

“I wish,” she said. “I just wish. We could have a good time, Joe. We could have something wonderful.” There was a silence. “I guess I’ve spelled it out.”

“If I said that I’d think it over, you would misunderstand,” he said.

“Not now. I wouldn’t.”

He was quiet. He was wondering what he had done.

She said, “Joe, if—well, I won’t be waiting for you to say something. I won’t be looking at you.”

“That’s right. That helps.”