Finis.
But there is one thing I cannot finish doing, and that is withdrawing to my room, and sitting alone with the good darkness round me. This, after all, is the last pleasure.
An interlude:
Miss Torsen and her actor are walking this way; I hear their footsteps and their voices; but since I am sitting in the dark of the evening, I cannot see them. They stop outside my open window, leaning against it, and the actor says something, asks her to do something she does not want to do, tries to draw her with him; but she resists.
Then he grows angry.
"What the devil did you send for me for?" he asks roughly.
And she begins to weep and says:
"So that's all you've come for! Oh, oh! But I'm not like that at all. Why can't you leave me alone? I'm not hurting you."
Am I one who understands women? Self-deception. Vain boasting. I made my presence known then because her weeping sounded so wretched; I moved a chair and cleared my throat.
The sound caught his attention at once, and he hushed her, trying to listen; but she said: