Nick brought her down to the drawing room and she chose some music by going to the record cupboard and pulling out a disc without looking and then putting it on. She seemed to say she could act, but that deliberations were beyond her. It came on jarringly. The arm had come down in the wrong place, as if looking for a single. "Ah yes…!" said Nick. It was the middle of the scherzo of Schumann's Fourth Symphony. He kept an eye on her, and felt he understood the way she let the music take care of her; he saw her drifting along in it, not knowing where she was particularly, but grateful and semi-interested. He was agitated by indecision, but he went with it himself for a few moments. The trio returned, but only for a brief airing before the magical transition to the finale… based, very obviously, on that of Beethoven's Fifth: he could have told her that, and how it was really the second symphony, and how all the material grew from the opening motif, except the unexpected second subject of the finale… He stood back and decided, in the bleak but proper light of responsibility, that he would go downstairs at once and ring Catherine's parents. But then, as he left the room, he thought suddenly of Leo, and felt sure he was losing his only chance with him: so he rang him instead, and put off the call to France until later. He didn't know how to explain it to Leo: the bare facts seemed too private to tell a stranger, and a watered-down version would sound like an invented excuse. Again he saw himself in the wrong. He kept clearing his throat as he dialled the number.

Leo answered very briskly, but that was only because he was having his dinner and still had to get ready-facts which Nick found illuminating. His voice, with its little reserve of mockery, was exactly what he had heard before, but had lost in the remembering. Nick had only begun his apologies when Leo got the point and said in an amiable way that he was quite relieved, and dead busy himself. "Oh good," said Nick, and then felt almost at once that Leo could have been more put out. "If you're sure you don't mind…" he added.