“No.”
“I didn’t see him there when I went out.”
“He might have gone over to the far end and flattened himself in the shadows where he could watch you, without your knowing he was there. That’s the way he would do things. He was secretive and liked to spy on people. Good heavens, when I was living there in the Quarter, you’d have thought I was an enemy alien, and he was the whole F.B.I. He snooped around, watched my apartment window with binoculars. When I’d go out with anyone, he’d be hanging around somewhere to find out what time I got in. I didn’t even dare to take a boy friend upstairs to have a drink—”
The waiter appeared with a tray, put dishes on the table. We started eating.
“Want to hear the rest of it?” she asked, after a few moments.
“After dinner,” I said. “Let’s concentrate on eating now. I’m hungry.”-
We ate our way through dinner. I could see that her nerves were relaxing. The wine and the food generated a mood of expansive friendship.
“Know something, Donald?”
“What?”
“I feel that I can trust you. I’m going to tell you the whole truth.”