I didn't look forward to spending so much time with James, particularly if he insisted on taking me to the museum. That would force me to talk to him and think about him: two things I had seldom done and never enjoyed. First, however, we would do what we had often done and always enjoyed.

James asked me to walk slowly up the stairs for him. He stood and watched me, apparently feeling some obscure pleasure. No matter how silly his games were, I enjoyed them, probably because they were games. He understood the importance of ritual and the irrational. I don't know what else he understood, but apparently he got along fairly well in the everyday world. I had seen him sign checks and dial telephones with pleasure and ease. I suspect he smiled more often than he should.

We spent some time in all the bedrooms that morning. He forced open the hinged jaws of one of Keith's snakes. We looked in Miss Barton's medicine cabinet, and he showed me some pictures he had taken of Katherine on their wedding night. It could not have been one of the happier nights of her life.

"Are you happy?", James asked me.

"Is that important?"

"Yes. Because I've been trying to make you happy. I want to know if I've succeeded."

"I like my life. I like it very much, James." I didn't tell him that I would have liked my life just as much without him. I would have found another house, another devoted person. I couldn't deny, though, that his devotion was exceptional. What he didn't realize was that he was devoted to his own pleasure and not to me.

"Do you love me, Clare?"

"No."

My denial pleased him.

"I wish you did," he said.

"No you don't. Lovers are unstable and dangerous."

"But I love you. Does that make me dangerous?"

"Yes."