“Of course you may,” he said dully.

“Its not Etienne Brûlé you’re trying to defend, it’s your brother Théo. You’re afraid your brother’s done something wrong . . . but since you don’t like that idea, it’s repressed in your unconscious, and instead of defending your brother, you’re defending Etienne Brûlé.”

Jack pondered for a moment.

“You may be right,” he said. “I admit that, deep down, it’s Théo I’m thinking about. I probably feel guilty about something. But what? It’s hard to say because there’s always this fog in my head . . .”

“You’ve said that before,” said the girl, smiling. “Excuse me. Where was I?”

“You were saying you felt guilty . . .”

“Ah, yes. I feel guilty . . . of not helping my brother at a time when he needed me. At least, I think that’s it.”

He tried to explain to the girl how he saw things. The postcard that his brother had sent him from Gaspé — fifteen years ago — was a sort of cry for help, a distress signal. But he had not understood, for two reasons: first, at the time he was working on a novel, which kept him from paying attention to what was going on around him; second, Théo had made the message difficult to decipher because he was too proud to come right out and ask for help. He understood all that now, and he felt guilty at the thought that his brother had spent weeks in Gaspé, waiting, then went back on the road, probably hitchhiking, perhaps intending to go to St. Louis where he knew a girl called Claudia, and that he’d got into trouble with the police in Toronto because of the business with the revolver.

“And perhaps they put him in jail,” the girl added.

“Why?” he asked, with no hostility this time.

“He didn’t have enough to pay the fine,” she said. “All he had on him was $32.58.”

“That’s true.”

“But going to jail isn’t all that serious. I did once, and my father’s been several times.”

“Oh yes?”

“And anyway, I think we’re lucky to have found his trail again,” she said. “After all, there are two and a half million people in Toronto.”

“You’re right. And I think you’re a great psychologist.”

“Thank you. You’re a sweetheart.”

“You’re a sweetheart, too,” he said. “You’re very intelligent and very beautiful.”

“And you’re the handsomest man I’ve ever met.”

She burst out laughing.

“And the two of us are the biggest liars in North America!” she said.

They were very cheerful when they left the restaurant. Yonge Street was starting to light up, and they strolled along the sidewalk, first in one direction, then the other, looking at the people and the store windows. La Grande Sauterelle felt quite comfortable dressed as a boy. With the tennis cap pulled down over her eyes, she stared at everybody and commented on the weird people; she turned and whistled when girls walked by.