a step below her, she leaned down and brushed her cheek along his
shoulder, a touch light as the passage of a bird's wing.

"It's my job to follow where you lead," she whispered.

They went down the narrow staircase crowded close together, arm against
arm, silent. In the doorway she turned to him.

"Don't come with me. I want to be alone. I want to understand what's
happened to me. You can think of me going through the streets and saying
over and over, 'I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy--' And you can think
it's because of you I'm saying it."

She was gone, a small, dark figure, flitting away against the glistening
splotches of light that broke on the street's wet vista.

Not knowing what else to do, Mayer walked home. He was angry with
everything--with Pancha, with himself, with life. He thought of her
without pity, savage toward her because he had to put her away from him.
Joy came to him with outstretched hands, and he had to turn his back on
it; it made him furious. He was exasperated with himself because so much
of his money was gone, and he had to do what he didn't want to do. The
money instead of making things easier had messed them into an enraging
tangle. Life always went against him--he saw the past as governed by a
malevolent fate whose business had been a continual creating of pitfalls
for his unwary feet.

One thing was certain, he must have done with Pancha. Fortunately for
him, it would not be hard. He would give his bridle rein a shake beside
the river shore, and let the fact that he had gone sink into her, not in