Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov, John Banville Page B

that you’ve grown prettier, but I like you all the same.”
    Margot suddenly gave a sob and turned away. He pulled her by the sleeve, but she turned away still farther. They revolved on one spot.
    “For heaven’s sake, say something. Where would you rather go—to my place or yours? What’s the matter with you?”
    She shook him off and walked quickly back to the corner. Rex followed her.
    “What on earth is the matter with you?” he repeated in perplexity.
    Margot hastened her steps. He caught her up again.
    “Come along with me, you goose,” said Rex. “Look, I’ve got something here …” He drew out his wallet.
    Margot promptly struck him a backhand blow in the face.
    “That ring on your forefinger is very sharp,” he said calmly. And he continued to follow her, hurriedly fumbling in his wallet.
    Margot ran to the entrance of the house and unlocked the door. Rex tried to thrust something into her hand, but suddenly he raised his eyes.
    “Oh, that’s the little game, is it?” he said, as he recognized the doorway from which they had just emerged.
    Margot pushed open the door without looking round.
    “Here, take it,” he said roughly, and as she did not, he pushed it down inside her fur-collar. The door would have banged, had it not beenof the reluctant, compressed-air kind. He stood there, pulled at his lower lip, and presently moved away.
    Margot groped through the darkness up to the first landing, and was about to go on when suddenly she felt faint. She seated herself on a step and sobbed as she had never sobbed before—not even that time when he had left her. She felt something crinkly against her neck and grasped it. It was a piece of rough paper. She pressed the light-switch and saw that she was holding in her hand, not money, but a pencil drawing: the back view of a girl, bare-shouldered, bare-legged, on a bed, with her face to the wall. Under it a date was written, first in pencil, then overwritten in ink—the day, month and year when he had left her. That was why he had told her not to look round—because he was sketching her! Was it really only two years since that day?
    The light went out with a thud, and Margot leaned against the grating of the lift crying afresh. She was crying because he had left her that time; because he had concealed his name and his reputation from her; because she might all this time have been happy with him if he had stayed; and because she would then have escaped the two Japanese, the old man and Albinus. And then she cried, too, because at supper Rex had touchedher right knee and Albinus her left—as though Paradise had been on her right hand and Hell on her left.
    She wiped her nose on her sleeve, groped in the darkness and pressed the switch again. The light calmed her a little. She examined the sketch once more; reflected that, however much it meant to her, it would be dangerous to keep it; tore it into fragments and flung these through the grating into the well of the lift. This reminded her of her early childhood. Then she pulled out her pocket mirror, powdered her face with a swift circular motion, straining her upper lip as she did so, closed her bag with a resolute click and ran up the steps.
    “Why so late?” asked Albinus.
    He was already in his pyjamas.
    She explained breathlessly that she had found it difficult to get rid of von Ivanoff, who had kept insisting that she must let him drive her home.
    “How my beauty’s eyes are sparkling,” he murmured, “and how tired and hot she is. My beauty has been drinking.”
    “No, leave me alone tonight,” replied Margot softly.
    “Bunny, please,” implored Albinus, “I’ve been waiting so.”
    “Wait a bit longer. First I want to know something:have you done anything about the divorce yet?”
    “The divorce?” he repeated, taken aback.
    “Sometimes I can’t understand you, Albert. After all, we must put things on a proper footing, mustn’t we? Or perhaps you mean to leave me after a while and