“Just a minute, may I?”
She went to the telephone, called a Number,—I was so upset it escaped me,—and spoke loudly: “I shall be waiting for you in the Ancient House. Yes, yes, alone.”
I turned the cold brass knob.
“May I take the aero?”
“Oh yes, certainly, please!”
In the sunshine at the gate the old woman was dozing like a plant. Again I was surprised to see her grown-together mouth open, and to hear her say:
“And your lady, did she remain alone?”
“Alone.”
The mouth of the old woman grew together again; she shook her head; apparently even her weakening brain understood the stupidity and the danger of the behaviour of that woman.
At seventeen o’clock exactly, I was at the lecture. There I suddenly realized that I did not tell the whole truth to the old woman. I-330 was not there alone now. Possibly this fact, that I involuntarily told the old woman a lie, was torturing me now and distracting my attention. Yes, not alone,—that was the point.