``What boat?''

``There's a big boat anchored near the Place de la Concorde, with a swimming pool in it -- didn't you notice it? But if he has time to go swimming, he had time to be with us.''

She looked at him in surprise.

``I know,'' he said, reading her mind.

``I don't know what I'm going to do with you.''

``It's because we are in France,'' he said, ``and know so few people. So something like this matters more than it would at home. Also, he was so nice when he was nice.''

``All because I didn't feel like dancing.''

``I don't think it was that, really.''

``Then what was it?''

``I don't know. I wish I did. The tweed coat, maybe. The thing about Eugene is that he's very proud.''

And the thing about hurt feelings, the wet bathing suit pointed out, is that the person who has them is not quite the innocent party he believes himself to be. For instance -- what about all those people Harold Rhodes went toward unhesitatingly, as if this were the one moment they would ever have together, their one chance of knowing each other?

Fortunately, the embarrassing questions raised by objects do not need to be answered, or we would all have to go sleep in the open fields. And in any case, answers may clarify but they do not change anything.