Jo and Day begin an affair

Jo Henniger and Day begin an affair during Richard’s weekend gathering, first moving away from the party at a waterfall and later leaving the final dinner together for Day’s cottage. The liaison takes shape through hesitation, renewed closeness, and Jo’s recognition that Day has paid attention to her; it remains ethically marked by her marriage, which both of them explicitly acknowledge, even as they act as if it has temporarily receded from view.

The encounter at the waterfall

The first turn comes when Dally calls attention to the water and the small herd disperses around the pool beneath the falls. Day takes Jo’s hand without warning and leads her into the water. The scene shifts them out of the party’s social orbit: separated from the others, they climb into a lower pool, an elongated stretch of clear water bordered by shaggy palms and unripe dates whose reflections lie still on the surface. The drums and pipes from a neighboring wadi continue nearby, lending the encounter a buoyant, uninhibited atmosphere.

Jo does not describe herself as especially sympathetic to Day, and she is puzzled by her own lightness as she floats on her back beneath the palms. Yet the attraction has been developing over the preceding day, and the water becomes the setting in which it grows harder to dismiss. Day plays at teasing her with a dead palm frond; the exchange, the music, and their separation from the party bring them into a private rhythm without removing the uncertainty between them.

Hesitation and renewed closeness

Jo experiences desire as something that seems to gather momentum before she has settled what she wants. She compares its inevitability to ball bearings rolling down an incline and recalls a similar sensation from adolescence. The image gives the encounter a sense of acceleration, but not of simple or uncomplicated surrender: she remains aware of her resistance, her judgment of Day, and the choices unfolding around her.

When Day touches her shoulder and brushes her cheek, Jo does not make a fuss, but her account also frames the moment critically. She thinks of men as opportunists and of desire as a force that can carry people forward; she then gives in, only to voice a reservation. Day laughs, and later kisses her. Jo eventually breaks away, gasping, and turns aside; his hands fall limp. The interruption matters. Their connection does not proceed as a smooth, settled courtship: the scene registers both her participation and her withdrawal, leaving the attraction unresolved rather than presenting hesitation as a permanent refusal or as proof of effortless consent.

The final dinner and Jo’s choice

By the third and final night, the gathering has changed in tone. The orchids on the dinner table are near the end of their brief life, their blossoms swollen and their pollen visible; the guests are in dinner jackets and fancier dresses, and multilingual speeches accompany a loosening of the decorum that had held the previous two evenings together. Jo senses a sexual charge in the room. The Moroccan boys lining the walls do not draw her interest, despite their place in Dally’s fantasy. Her attention remains on Day, and she distinguishes her attraction from mere availability: what matters to her is that he has taken time to consider her, weighing her qualities and faults rather than treating her as interchangeable company.

The marriage she shares with David Henniger is not absent from her mind. When Jo reminds Day that he has not forgotten her husband, he answers that they ought not to forget him, while acknowledging that in some sense they already have. Jo nods. This exchange makes the affair’s boundary crossing explicit between them: they recognize the marriage rather than mistaking the liaison for an innocent encounter, but recognition does not stop them. The conversation gives Jo’s decision a personal rationale, while preserving the contradiction between her awareness of the obligation and her willingness to act against it.

Leaving the party together

After dinner, the French windows open and the gathering spills into the night. Richard has chosen a sophisticated finale, with no dancing or music; the guests occupy the gardens, where photographers turn their flashes on an Italian television personality. Amid that public spectacle, Day and Jo slip away across the lawn carrying biscuits, strawberries, and two glasses. A bottle is waiting in Day’s cottage. The contrast between the bright, crowded lawn and their departure gives the liaison a discreet, purposeful shape: they are no longer merely caught up in the waterfall’s atmosphere but choosing to continue together.

Jo hurries through the flashes and smoke, deliberately pushing down her dread. Day takes her hand, and she closes her eyes as he leads her through the ksour’s narrow alleys. They reach the quietly furnished room, with its sashes, Berber objects, laundry boxes, slippers, and a cat drinking condensed milk. Day opens the champagne while explaining the wire cage and how to turn the bottle; his manner turns the practical ritual into flirtation. The episode ends at the threshold of further intimacy, not with a stated account of what follows. Its decisive change is already clear: after recognizing her husband and after an earlier moment of withdrawal, Jo leaves the party with Day, making the affair an active choice rather than a passing suggestion.