Nothing That Meets the Eye by Patricia Highsmith

magic casements, toward the woman who sat at a table amid the field of empty tables.
    She looked up as he came closer, and all Hildebrandt could realize, dazed as he was by nearness to her, was that she regarded him without surprise, as he had known she would. Surely she would recognize him, too!
    He bowed slightly. “If I may, I should like to say good evening to you.” She was slim and stately as the casements, the heart of their poem. “My name is Oliver Hildebrandt,” he added.
    She was older, more reserved than he had thought. He could not take in anything definite about her at once except a straight fall of light brown hair beneath a small hat with a veil. Her silence confused him.
    â€œAre you waiting for someone?” he asked.
    â€œOnly for a waiter.”
    â€œWould you mind if I sat with you a moment?”
    Perhaps her brows went up a little. Then she gestured to an empty chair. “If you like.”
    He slipped a chair out and sat down. She looked pleasant, he thought, though certainly she failed of the interest in him he had expected. Behind the veil her face was narrow and very pale, and Hildebrandt was shocked to see a thin scar that began under her right eye and curved out of his sight.
    â€œYou haven’t been here before, have you?”
    â€œNo.”
    Even her voice was as he had known it would be. The brandies bore him along, against her indifference. “Strange you should happen to come.”
    â€œIs it? It does look like a very restricted place.”
    Hildebrandt laughed. “I don’t know why anyone comes here, really, but . . .” He hesitated between sophistication and honesty and, not knowing which he chose, said, “I come because of the casements.”
    He would not have admitted then even to himself how he counted upon a sympathetic answer from her. He watched her gray eyes, which looked tired and not amused like her mouth, move to the entranceway, then back to him.
    â€œThey are rather romantic,” she said in low musical tones that thrilled him. Yet in a way, she had said it like a plain statement of fact.
    â€œYes. Absurd—and yet romantic.” He carried a match to her cigarette before she could use her lighter, took one of his own for himself and tossed his box of Players on the table. “Won’t you tell me your name?”
    â€œOh”—she smiled—”that’s the least important thing.”
    â€œBut I’ve told you mine.” He looked at the green lizard-bound lighter. “I know your initials—H.C. So I might as well know your name.”
    â€œMaybe legion. That might do for both of us.”
    Hildebrandt laughed uneasily, touched the brandy glass that had somehow appeared before him, and watched her sip at hers. This was the moment at which he should have had a toast to say. Yet more important it seemed to awaken her.
    â€œLook here, I hope you don’t think I’ve been rude,” he said, confident he had not been.
    â€œNot at all. I’m glad you came to talk to me.”
    Hildebrandt’s assurance leapt, put him on the edge of his chair, inspired him to fix his eyes dreamily in space for an instant, as he often did before embarking upon a rehearsed story. “You know, it’s strange, but I’ve so much to talk to you about—of trade winds and lapis lazuli seas, maybe the mosques of ancient Persia—and the way you came into this room tonight.”
    â€œTalk to me, then,” she said quietly. “I should love it.”
    She had relaxed and seemed suddenly dependent upon him. Hildebrandt felt enormously tender toward her. “Is something the matter?”
    She smiled. “Later. Talk to me about everything or nothing.”
    It was what he wished. She was delightful. Yet as his mind danced with anticipation of what he would say, he thought first of describing all the hours at the bar, the sense of rotting away, the absence of purpose and