“You saw him that morning,” Leland said.

“Yes. Did you talk to Norma about that day?”

“And the night before. There was an incident after dinner. In the parking lot outside the restaurant. He seemed upset, but not more than other people might have been.”

“Norma repressed it, you know. I was afraid that she would focus on it and want to know why he had reacted so violently. So far, she hasn’t looked at it from that side.”

“Norma remembered when she was with me on Monday,” Leland said. “What did he tell you that morning?”

“At first he didn’t want to discuss it. It had taken him twenty minutes to remember, earlier, when he had awakened. He came in in an agitated condition, but eventually he talked freely. He talked about what happened afterward, between Norma and him.”

“She gave me an idea,” Leland said.

“She’s so honest and forthright. It worked a magic on him. She knows better than anybody that sex is a thing you are. You look distressed. Psychotherapy isn’t conducted in a drawing room. As you said, if Norma wouldn’t understand it, no one would. I knew from my work with her how their private relationship would develop. Her attitude might have been the best thing that happened to Colin. She likes to talk and play. He had had only glimpses of that kind of sex, that loving forthrightness.” He looked at Leland. “You don’t want to hear this, do you?”

“No.”

“He left the office on a positive note. He was aware that he could have been anybody the night before; that he hadn’t acted abnormally in the way he had gotten the boys out of the car. The boy who spat on him either acted on his own sudden impulse or because he had said something to the others that he had to back up. Colin and I went on from there. We talked about what he and Norma had done earlier, parking down on the Point. It may seem ordinary to you. Something like that had been one of his fantasies, and bringing it to reality had given him real joy. The turn of events pleased him—the beautiful girl in the car had turned out to be his wife, pregnant with his child. He thought that she was beautiful, but then, you do, too.”

“I know that she is,” Leland said.

“That’s where we stopped,” Roberts said. “We had discussed the qualities of memory long before, that he could dwell on what he chose. In the course of the hour I had asked about his plans for the day, and they didn’t amount to much. I wanted him to see that he could go home, arrange his plans to suit himself, if he thought that it would profit him. If it occurred to him—it had bèfore—he didn’t say it. I doubt that he thought of it. I don’t think that he really knew that he was in that kind of trouble.