“Whatever you feel like telling me.”
“Good. Then I’ll tell you something. For an hour I’ve been saying ‘thou’ to you, and you have been saying ‘you’ to me. Always Latin and Greek, always as complicated as possible. When a girl addresses you intimately and she isn’t disagreeable to you, then you should address her in the same way. So now you’ve learnt something. And secondly—for half an hour I’ve known that you’re called Harry. I know it because I asked you. But you don’t care to know my name.”
“Oh, but indeed—I’d like to know very much.”
“You’re too late! If we meet again, you can ask me again. Today I shan’t tell you. And now I’m going to dance.”
At the first sign she made of getting up, my heart sank like lead. I dreaded her going and leaving me alone, for then it would all come back as it was before. In a moment, the old dread and wretchedness took hold of me like a toothache that has passed off and then comes back of a sudden and burns like fire. Oh, God, had I forgotten, then, what was waiting for me? Had anything altered?
“Stop,” I implored, “don’t go. You can dance of course, as much as you please, but don’t stay away too long. Come back again, come back again.”
She laughed as she got up. I expected that she would have been taller. She was slender, but not tall. Again I was reminded of someone. Of whom? I could not make out.
“You’re coming back?”
“I’m coming back, but it may be half an hour or an hour, perhaps. I want to tell you something. Shut your eyes and sleep for a little. That’s what you need.”