"Sometimes the fox gets away," she said.
"The fox never gets away in the end," he said kindly. "He ma get away a dozen times, but there'll always be a thirteenth time when he makes one little mistake, and then he's just a trophy for somebody to take home. It's almost dull, but that's how it is."
"They've never caught you."
"Yet."
He went to the window and peered out. The sky was already darkening with the limpid clarity of sunset, the hour when it seems to grow thinner and deeper so that you almost begin to see through it into the darkness of outer space.
Without turning, he said: "I gather that you've already told the fox."
He heard her stir in the chair behind him.
"Yes."
He said, without anger, without disappointment, without anything: "I rather thought you would. I expected that when I left you. Because you really have too much heart for too little sense. I don't blame you for the heart, but now I want you to try and develop some sense."
"I'm sorry," she said, and she could have been. "But I can't do anything about it."