''No.
They damn well will not.
Also I'll tell them it is a portrait of my daughter.''
''Did you ever have a daughter?''
''No. I always wanted one.''
''I can be your daughter as well as everything else.''
''That would be incest.''
''I don't think that would be so terrible in a city as old as this and that has seen what this city has seen.''
''Listen, Daughter.''
''Good,'' she said. ''That was fine. I liked it.''
''All right,'' the Colonel said and his voice was thickened a little. ''I liked it, too.''
''Do you see now why I love you when I know better than to do it?''
''Look, Daughter. Where should we dine?''
''Wherever you like.''
''Would you eat at the Gritti?''
''Of course.''
''Then call the house and ask for permission.''
''No.
I decided not to ask permission but to send word where I was dining. So they would not worry.''
''But do you really prefer the Gritti?''
''I do.
Because it is a lovely restaurant and it is where you live and anyone can look at us that wants to.''
''When did you get like that?''
''I have always been like that.
I have never cared what anyone thought, ever.
Nor have I ever done anything that I was ashamed of except tell lies when I was a little girl and be unkind to people.''
''I wish we could be married and have five sons,'' the Colonel said.
''So do I,'' the girl said. ''And send them to the five corners of the world.''
''Are there five corners to the world?''
''I don't know,'' she said. ''It sounded as though there were when I said it.
And now we are having fun again, aren't we?''
''Yes, Daughter,'' the Colonel said.
''Say it again.
Just as you said it.''
''Yes, Daughter.''
''Oh,'' she said. ''People must be very complicated.
Please may I take your hand?''
''It's so damned ugly and I dislike looking at it.''
''You don't know about your hand.''
''That's a matter of opinion,'' he said. ''I'd say you were wrong, Daughter.''
''Maybe I am wrong.
But we're having fun again and whatever the bad thing was is gone now.''
''It's gone the way the mist is burned off the hollows in broken ground when the sun comes out,'' the Colonel said. ''And you're the sun.''
''I want to be the moon, too.''
''You are,'' the Colonel told her. ''Also any particular planet that you wish to be and I will give you an accurate location of the planet.
Christ, Daughter, you can be a God-damn constellation if you like. Only that's an airplane.''
''I'll be the moon.
She has many troubles too.''
''Yes.
Her sorrows come regularly.