She came out onto the stone landing with him, outside her flat.
“It’s not midnight yet,” he said. “Will you risk it?”
“Without a qualm of conscience,” she answered, and gave him her lips to kiss.
“Good luck, mon ami!” So she called into the well of the great staircase, as he stumbled down.
“My heart’s thanks!” he answered back from a lower flight.
“ ‘Partir, c’est mourir un peu!’ ” she said in a laughing way, yet a little sad too, he thought.
He spoke the second line:
“ ‘C’est mourir à ce qu’on aime!’ ”
Some people came out of the flat on the second floor and tramped down the stone stairs noisily, and he had no more chance of farewell with Janet Welford.
“Cut and run,” old Christy had said. Well, he was doing so. As Joyce said, “It must be one thing or the other.”