He discovers that she doesn't like doors. When he holds them open for her she scurries through them, as though afraid that she will become someone else in the instant of the threshold.

"You fear doors," he says to her when they sit down for their first dinner together. He is paying.

She looks surprised. "Of course I do. Don't you?"

"No."

"You should," she tells him.

"Why should I? A door can do nothing to me."

"I can't believe that you're so old but you aren't scared of doors yet. Doors have memories, you know. I can't believe you haven't figured that out."

"Doors are not alive. They know nothing."

"I didn't say they knew things, I said they remember."

"And what do doors remember?"

"How to close," she says.

"Are you afraid that they will close behind you or in front of you?"

"Does it matter?"