Chapter 3 Summary

John Ducane is with Jessica Bird, his lover. She is a teacher and 28, fifteen years younger than John. Although she is a talented painter, she seems to John to be unintelligent. This is a problem for John, but as he is not prone to long affairs, the relationship has been somewhat doomed from the beginning. He has come to end things with her, as he has tried to do in the past, but as before, her tears and pleading are making it hard to John to stick to the plan. Jessica asks what she has done to make him leave her and if she has done nothing, why can't things go on. When he replies that the situation is just wrong, she tells him that she loves him and as there is little enough love in the world, he shouldn't try to kill...