The Young and Untrusted_ , and _I'm Not Sorry_. "I want to apologize," she said, "for the way I behaved." "The way you behaved?" "A few weeks ago, at the dinner with your editor. I thought you should know." "It was in the paper?" "Yes. It was in the paper." He could hear her blushing. He remembered looking out for her, and not seeing her. It had been, after all, two years. He didn't recognize himself. "My husband doesn't know yet," she said. He stopped walking and looked down at her. The moon was behind him and it was his face that showed in the moon's reflected light. "That's not a good idea," he said. "I know. I'm sorry. It was impulsive. I had just come from the doctor. I was on Valium, as a matter of fact. I took two, and I didn't know what to do." "You could have called me," he said. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm very ashamed." "Well," he said. "We could all be a little more discreet." "I don't know what to say." "You should try, as they say in the movies," he said. They were silent again. He took her hand and, when she did not resist, held it. "Have you heard of a man named Robert Kennedy?" she said. "He's running for president of the United States. I don't mean that he's on the ballot. He's on the ballot, but his organization is doing all the dirty work." "That's right," he said. "I read that he was coming. We have a big race. No Negro running for president. We'd be an outpost in the dark, so to speak. A place of quiet despair." "Yes," she said. "It has a certain literary charm, I suppose. Not that the other has not." He thought of the young man who came to buy the building she lived in. He would be disappointed if, next week, that young man was killed in Vietnam. "I'm going to take you to a hotel," he said. "I'm going to get a room for you and I'm going to take you inside of it. You can lie down and rest and I'll take you someplace else. What did you have in mind?" "The St. Regis," she said. "That's what I meant." "Where?" he asked. "Do we have to have dinner first?" "No. They have very nice bathrooms. They're huge bathrooms with all these lights and big bathtubs." "Okay," he said. "I'm glad we have it straight." He watched her walk along the front of the hotel. He watched her take hold of the door and, with something that looked like a key, open it and enter the vestibule. He followed her in. It was like watching someone else and he was the bystander. He was surprised at his calmness, at his ability to remain detached, at the feeling he had that the woman before him, holding a key, was still an enigma. She held the door open for him and he noticed that, as she did, her breasts were thrust forward and that her skin was taut and glistening and she was breathing. "Let me take your coat," she said. She took off his overcoat and placed it on a hook. "You don't want your dress?" she said. "I don't think so," he said. "It's very warm," she said. "I can always put it in my suitcase." "I don't mind," he said. He sat down in one of the large chairs and reached to turn out the lamp on the table beside the chair. "We should get under the covers," she said. She turned out the other lamp and sat on the bed. She didn't ask him to undress, but he could feel that she wanted him to undress and he knew that he would, not only because she wished it, but because it was what was expected. "Do you need any help?" she asked. "No," he said. They lay beside each other, facing the light of the bed lamp, waiting for sleep. "I don't know if this is the right time," he said. "It's all right," she said. "I don't mind." "There are times when people might." "I don't mind," she said. "We're supposed to be able to take pleasure in the body, don't you think?" "Yes, but..." "What?" she asked. "If someone happened to see us, they'd think we were two old maids in flagrante delicto." "But it's true." "But it isn't real." "Yes, it is," she said. He turned onto his side and looked at her. She lay with her eyes closed. He lay with his eyes closed. There was no expression in either of their faces. There was a light wind and then a noise that sounded like glass being crunched under a heel, and then there was silence. He thought of his brother, who was somewhere overseas, and of the way that brother might have been killed, not for any reason in particular, but by a sniper's bullet or by an American fighter plane while he sat reading his mail in a trench in the Argonne, and of how this man might think of him now, of how he was part of that history. He looked at the woman next to him and he began to be able to see the shape of her face, the outline of her hair. She turned onto her side and then turned onto her back. He continued to lie with his eyes closed. He thought of how this night was the end of one life and the beginning of another, how all that had occurred since the first time they lay together might be forgotten and something might be given in its place that was more permanent and more solid. He felt the mattress shift and looked across the dark space that was between them and saw that she was awake, too. He said, "I love you." "What?" she asked. "I love you," he said. "I love you, too," she said. "I love you, too." "You can feel his breath in your face," she said. "Is that true?" he said. "Yes," she said. "Can I feel yours?" "Yes." "I don't see what's wrong with that," he said. "I think we should find out if it's possible to think of ourselves as two people at the same time." "Is that what we've been doing?" "Of course," he said. "Have you felt that?" she asked. "Yes," he said. "At times. We can kiss each other in front of people." "I know," she said. "I feel it, too." "You see?" he said. "Aren't we getting along?" "It's getting darker," she said. "Let's turn the lights out. It will be dark." "It was dark," he said. "I was reading." "Where?" "It doesn't matter," he said. "In _Anna Karenina_. I was reading. It was late. There was a sound. I think it was glass being broken and then there was the sound of tires and then the sound of a horn." "What?" she said. "What?" "I think I closed my eyes," he said. "And then it was all over and it was dark. I heard a sound. Maybe it was my imagination. It was very dark." "Is it going to happen again?" she said. "Yes," he said. "Oh, God," she said. "It's better than a war," he said. "We're right here, right where we are, and it's going to happen again." "Oh, Robert," she said. "Oh, God, what are we going to do?" "I'm sorry," he said. "We should have brought a bedspread. You'll never find one this time of year." "I don't want to go on," she said. "I feel that I'm going to die. I feel the end. It's going to happen again. It's going to happen forever. Can't we do something about this? It's been a long time, hasn't it? Let's talk to a doctor." "I can't do anything about it," he said. "It doesn't seem important at the moment." "You're a doctor." "Not really." "I'm sorry," she said. "It's all so strange. It seems like something out of an old-fashioned novel. It's so unreal." "Don't say that," he said