Then she called to me. "Wally, come here. I want to speak to you."
I came.
"You thought I was going to leave Jimmy. But I wasn't. He knew I wasn't. Why, the first night I knew how impossible it was."
I said, Yes. Of course it was impossible. And of course he knew.
"I shan't mind if only we can get to him before anything happens."
I said nothing would happen, and of course we should get to him.
She was silent so long that I was startled when she said, "Wally—your nervous aren't you, are they?"
I said, No. No. Of course they weren't.
I knew what she was thinking. Out of the intolerable beauty she had seen Jimmy rise with all his gestures. She heard the cracking of his knuckles and saw the jerking of his thumb. And these things became tender and pathetic and dear to her as if he were dead.
And she had seen herself shudder at them as if it had been another woman who shuddered, a strange and pitiless woman whom she hated.