The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith Page B

don’t?”
    â€œBecause I know. I’ll never do again what I did the other night until you do love me. Maybe I only did it the other night to prove how strong I am.”
    â€œOh, Ellie!” He frowned. “That’s all very complicated. And very Russian.”
    â€œWell, I am half Russian.” She smiled. “Shall I be very straightforward? You don’t love me, but you’re attracted to me because I’m different from your wife. You have troubles with your wife, so you come to me—don’t you?” She spoke so softly that he had to strain to hear her. “But I’m not so unwise as to have an affair with a married man—even if I am in love with him.”
    â€œEllie, I could love you more than any woman on earth. I do love you!”
    â€œBut what are you going to do about it, I wonder? I don’t think anything.” There was no resentment in her tone. She said it like a simple statement of fact.
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œWell, I don’t. Perhaps I’m wrong.”
    It was her seriousness that stymied him, he realized. He realized that he didn’t match it with any plans, any solution of his own, and perhaps not with any emotion, either. He suddenly saw himself objectively, as she must see him, and he felt ashamed.
    â€œI don’t know you and yet I think I know you—enough to love you,” Ellie said. “I think you’re basically decent. I think you’re strong. And I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you.”
    Walter wondered if he could say the same thing. That night of the party—
    â€œI haven’t had a very merry life,” she went on. “My father drank. He died when I was sixteen. I had to support my mother, because my brother is about as useless as my father was. My mother named me Elspeth because she thought it was a pretty name. It’s the only thing I can think of that she ever got her way about—with my father. The only sure thing I ever found was music. I had two loves before—little ones, not like you.” She smiled and she looked very young, younger than her voice. “I like sure things. I want a home. I want children.”
    â€œSo do I,” Walter said.
    â€œAnd with a man I can look up to. I want something definite. It’s just my luck I had to fall for you, isn’t it?”
    â€œI know exactly. I know all you’re saying.” Walter stared down at the brown wood of the table. “I never told you that I intend to get a divorce from my wife very soon. Of course I’m not getting on with her. That’s obvious to everyone who comes in the house. I want to get a divorce as soon as it can be arranged.” He did. But did he want to marry Ellie? He felt he couldn’t definitely answer that yet, and it was that, he thought, that kept any more words from coming.
    â€œWhen?” she asked.
    â€œIt’s a question of a few weeks only. Then if we still like each other—still love each other—”
    â€œI’ll still love you in a few weeks. You see, it’s you who’s in doubt.” She lighted a cigarette. “I don’t think you’d better see me again until you know for sure.”
    â€œThat I love you?”
    â€œAbout the divorce.”
    â€œAll right,” Walter said.
    â€œI love you too much—do you understand? I shouldn’t even tell you that, should I? I love even being near you—geographically. And that’s all I am now. But you’ll never find me hanging around Marlborough Road.”
    He stared down at his lighter.
    â€œDo you mind if I go home now? I can’t talk any more—about anything else.”
    â€œAll right,” Walter said. He looked around for the waiter to get the check.
    The men were still whooping it up in the bar as they went out.
    It was only 9:15 when Walter got home, but Clara was in bed, reading. Walter asked her how the evening at