“That’s just what I should like more than anything, Leni.”

“Will you have it in the surgery?”

“That would be nice, too.”

“All right. You look pale. Have you been very busy?”

“No, not busy — just bored. What have you been up to?”

“Up to? What does that mean?”

“What have you been doing?”

“Packing.”

“Oh yes, of course.”

And there, facing him again, was the imminence of her departure. He pondered on it as he sat alone and listened to the clatter of cups in the kitchen. Presently she reentered, carrying a loaded tray.

“Seen the papers these last few days?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Looks bad, but I don’t think it’ll come to anything over here.”

“Come to anything?”

“Anything bad, I mean. But it’s bad enough for those who are in it. Good thing you’re not in your own country, perhaps. By the way, did you get my letter?”

“Yes, it was so good of you to write.”

“Well, I thought you’d be relieved to know. About the music, I mean. It’s a good idea … which reminds me, we can try over something this afternoon if you like — there’s no one in —”

“But Mrs. Newcome said —”

“She’ll never know.”

“The people in the street will hear. Somebody will tell her.”

“Then we’ll close all the windows!” He added, boyishly: “Are you afraid?”

“Only for you, David.”

“For me? Why, God bless my soul, what harm can come to me?”

She answered, in German: “You have to stay here after I have gone.”

“I know. I’m trying to realize it. It’s curious — I can’t quite grasp the fact that you really are going and that this is your last day here … I’ll miss you. And really, I don’t see why Jessie should forbid such a harmless thing.”

So after the tea they went in the drawing-room and David stood on the window seat to close the windows. But one of them was stiff, and as he reached upwards to push, he lost balance and had to clutch a picture to save himself from falling. The picture came down on his head, showering him with dust; and of course he began to laugh, because he had a very simple and artless sense of humor. Then she went to the piano and he took out his violin and they began to play Mozart. The music streamed into the room, enclosing a world in which they were free as air, shutting out hatreds and jealousies and despondencies, giving their eyes a look of union with something rare and distant. David did not play very well — indeed, a good deal of the Mozart was much too difficult for him; but there was a simplicity that gave calmness to his effort, absorbing rather than interpreting the music. And he thought, as he played, that it was a strange thing, at forty-six, to know the sweetness and terror of existence as if one had never known them before, to look back mystically on the incredible chance of human contact, to feel some finger of destiny marking the streets of Calderbury where he had walked and talked with a girl.