“I couldn't leave you there, dear. Not there at T'ainan.”
“It wasn't you who made the decision.”
“Oh, yes—”
“No, I did it. It seemed the thing to do.”
He managed to look up now, but could not knowhow coolly impenetrable he appeared to be. “It was the thing.”
She slowly shook her head. “No... no, I shouldn't have come.”
“I can't let you say that.”
“It's true. Can't we be honest?”
The question stung him. He dropped again into his chair and sat for a brief time, thinking, thinking, in that, to her, terribly deliberate way of his.
“You're right,” he finally came out. “We've got to be honest. It's the only thing left to us, apparently... The mistake lay back there in T'ainan. Our first talk in the tennis court. I knew then that the thing for me to do was to go.”