Well," she said, going vague and bright and idiotic again, so
as to escape: "Well, I don't see why not."
He was jerking his elbows up and down, in annoyance or in
pain, and, looking at him, she saw he had got thin, even gaunt;
and restless aragry movements were not what she remembered
of him. He said: "Do you want a divorce, is that it?"
At this, Susan only with the greatest difficulty stopped herself
from laughing: she could hear the bright bubbling laughter
sheuould have emitted, had she let herself. He could only mean
one thing: she had a lover, and that was why she spent her days
in London, as lost to him as if she had vanished to another
continent.
Then the small panic set in again: she understood that he
hoped she did have a lover, he was begging her to say so, because
otherwise it would be too terrifying.
She thought this out as she brushed her hair, watching the
fine black stuff fly up to make its little clouds of electricity, hiss,
hiss, hiss. Behind her head, across the room, was a blue wall.
She realised she was absorbed in watching the black hair making
shapes against the blue. She should be answering him. "Do
youwant a divorce, Matthew?"
He said: "That surely isn't the point, is it?"
"You brought it up, I didn't," she said, brightly, suppressing
meaningless tinkling laughter.