"I'm sorry," she says.

"For what?"

"For giving you a hard time, in the car." It seems she means to be somehow repentant, but her words are delivered with little tremor of sarcasm on the edge, though he is not sure who is being mocked - he for being so touchy or she for behaving badly?

"It's all right," he says. "It's fine."

"I had no right."

"It's okay. It's just...you know. Talk." He feels as if he is evading her conversation, she is the bull and he is the matador.

"I would like to apologize," she says, her eyes narrowing. "And I would like you to accept my apology."

"You did nothing and said nothing that needs an apology."

She shakes her head, amazed at the depths of his treachery.

"You won't even give me that?" she asks.

"I wouldn't know what I was giving, I really have no idea what this conversation is about."

She takes a deep breath, pours herself a little more wine, a scientifically minute portion that splashes at the bottom of her tall glass. "Daniel, I have this terrible feeling about you. No, sorry, not about you. Sorry. But about what's happening to you."

"It's late," he says. "I've had a long day, we both have. Tomorrow's Saturday, we can talk tomorrow." He has peeled off his socks and now he's stepping out of his trousers. For a brief moment he has allowed himself to wonder what it would feel like if he were getting undressed to get into bed with Iris Davenport, and now that the thought has presented itself he cannot get rid of it. It just flies around and around within him, like a bird that can't find the window that let into the house.

"It's already tomorrow and I want to talk now. It's not big deal, I just want to ask you a question. Is that all right? One teeny-tiny question? Or maybe not teeny-tiny, maybe more medium-sized."

"You're sort of loaded, Kate."

She doesn't mind his saying this. "Do you believe in love?"

"I don't know. No. Yes. I don't even know what you mean."

"O.J. believed in love. Even though he's lying about killing his wife, in his heart he knows he did it, and he might even think he did it for love."

"I don't believe in killing, if that's what you mean."

"You know," Kate says, pouring herself more wine, less judiciously this time, "people think that love is what's best in each of us, our capacity to love. They think love is like God, and they worship their own feelings of love, which is really just narcism, masquerading as spirituality. You understand? If we say that God is love, then we can say that love is God, and that gives us the right to all these chaotic, needy, lusting, insane feelings inside of ourselves. We can call it love, and from there it's just a hop, skip, and a jump to calling it God. But here's a thought. What if God isn't love? And love isn't God? What if all those emotions we call love turn out to be what's really worst in us, what if it's all the firings of the foulest, most primitive part of the back brain, what if it's just as savage and selfish as rage or greed or lust?"