The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith

him from the middle of the room, smiling a wide, embarrassed smile at him. “How much further is this going?”
    He came towards her, but she looked a little frightened, or annoyed, and he stopped.
    She walked slowly into the kitchen. Her body in the skirt and blouse looked very young to him, young in its pretence of indifference. She felt the champagne bottle.
    â€œWith ice in the glass, this should be all right,” she said. “Do you mind ice in the glass?”
    â€œNo.”
    She looked at him with the shy, excited eyes again. “I’m not dressed for champagne. Can you wait ten minutes? Here’re the glasses. I don’t have anything but old-fashioned glasses.” She handed them to him, then went into the living-room and got something white out of the suitcases. Then she disappeared into the bathroom.
    Walter heard the shower running. He put the ice into the glasses, and set them with the champagne bottle on a suitcase lid. The shower ran a long time, and he started to fix himself another Scotch and then didn’t.
    Ellie came out in a thick white bathrobe, barefoot. “I ought to put on my best suit,” she said, looking into a suitcase.
    â€œDon’t put on anything.” The bathrobe was of terry cloth, and Walter thought suddenly, Clara hates terry cloth. “I wish you’d take that off,” he said.
    She ignored the remark completely, which for Walter was the most exciting reaction she could have had. “Open the bottle.” She sat down on the floor beside the suitcase and leaned against the sofa.
    Walter worked the cork out and poured it. They tasted it in silence. He had turned off the main light, and there was only a light from the kitchen. She had lovely feet, smooth and narrow and brown as her legs. They did not look as if they went with her hands. He poured more champagne. “Not bad, is it?”
    â€œNot bad,” she echoed. She leaned her head back against the sofa. “It’s wonderful. There are times when I like disorder. Tonight’s one of them.”
    He got up and spread a green blanket on the floor. “Isn’t the floor getting hard?” he asked.
    She lay on her stomach on the blanket, with her cheek down on her arm, looking up at him. He sat beside her on the blanket. The champagne seemed to go on for ever, like the pitcher in the myth.
    â€œWhy don’t you take your clothes off?” she asked.
    He did, and then he untied the terry-cloth belt. She felt wonderfully soft, her breast against his hand as soft as milk. He was very slow and very careful not to hurt her on the floor that was still hard in spite of the blanket, but Ellie didn’t seem to feel it, and then he forgot the floor. But he had a cool, rational moment when he wondered if anyone had ever made love to her as well as he. He felt they had been together many times before and that for them it would never diminish as long as they lived. And that Clara was a pale thing compared to this.
    He wanted to say, I love you. He said nothing.
    She opened her eyes and looked at him.
    He poured the last of the champagne, then lighted a cigarette to share with her.
    â€œDo you know the time?” she asked.
    He hated the fact that he was still wearing his wrist watch. “It’s only five to two.”
    â€œOnly!” She got up and went to the radio and turned it on, low. Then she came back and knelt down in front of him. She kissed his forehead.
    He watched her put her robe on. Then he put on his own clothes quickly. He didn’t want to stay the night, yet he felt that she wanted him to. “When will I see you?” he asked.
    She looked up at him, and he knew from her eyes that she was disappointed because he wanted to leave. “I don’t want to plan anything.”
    â€œCan I do anything for you?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œErrands. For the new apartment.”
    Ellie laughed. She was leaning against the empty