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Chapter 9

Chapter 9

They ordered mixed grill: sausage, kidney, bacon, lamb cutlet, and fried eggs. As soon as they were seated and alone he returned to the subject. "What did you say about me, eh? You and my inquisitive little sister, the wretch." She surveyed him coolly and then asked if he really

wished to know. He answered with an uneasy affirmative.

"We were talking about men in general. We just used you as an example."

"How charming."

"Did she write to you about Chuck He nodded. "From Boston - I mean, that's where

she wrote from."

"She said he wasn't like any English boy she knew. He'd ask her opinion on something or other and he'd really want to hear the answer." "I'm sure there's lots of English boys like that. How

many has she met?"

"I told her you were the same."

"There you are, then! You're right immature. "I said it was the worst thing about you." He laughed and patted her arm. she is

"Straight!" she assured him. "I mean it. Where I come from, if a man doesn't belt you round the mouth once a week, you begin to think he doesn't love you no more. No one ever taught me how to deal with a man who thinks I'm worth as much as what he is." "More," he murmured.

"I mean, when you ask my opinion on this or that, or what I think we ought to do, I just get all paralyzed." "But why?" He laughed weakly, begging her to

confess she was joking. "Because, like I said to her, it frightens me silly. It's like you're asking me to decide for us - trained up to it." and I'm not

He licked his lips and grinned. "You mean, if I grabbed you by the hair and dragged you off to my cave and told you to consider yourself my wife, and don't you dare speak until spoken to ... that would do the trick where all my present wiles fail?"

She considered the question; a faraway stole into her eyes. "No," she replied at last, with the faintest of sad smiles. "You've spoiled me for all that, too. I can't go back, because I know there's better things in life. And I can't go because they frighten me. I'm not brought up to them."

He felt every last drop of jocularity drain from him. "You know what you're really telling me," he said at last.

"What?"

"You're saying that if I stop pestering you and being calf-sick and stupid and all that sort of thing..if I just give you time, you'll probably agree to marry

me in the end." She nodded forlornly, as if to say that good New Year's resolutions were one thing; February the first was another. "I'll tell you something for free," she promised. "It won't be anyone else."

After that the atmosphere between them changed markedly. The tension just seemed to evaporate, and they talked like a pair of cousins who endlessly flirted with the possibility of an affaire between them, though both knew it would never actually begin. They ate their meal with new relish while she told him of amusing things that had happened in New York and on the voyage back. But of her escapade with Kathleen she said nothing.

They had a slight tiff in the cab on the way back to Upper Street, when he told her he was perfectly willing - not to say eager to go on paying the rent on the rooms and she insisted she was quite able not to say eager - to look after it herself these days. As she slipped the key in the lock she glanced quickly up and down the deserted street and then

asked him in for a nightcap. "I still got the same bottle

of port," she announced proudly. When they were up in her room, she nodded toward the bed and said, "Come on! You know we both want to."

He took up her left hand and, consulting her ring finger as if it were a watch, replied, "No, it's not time yet."

Their eyes met and locked. "Tell you what," she said. "You spend the night

with me and I'll marry you. There - can't say fairer!" He closed his eyes and shivered. "Reverse the order," he said, "and we'll shake hands on it. Promise."

She laughed and wriggled her hand free. "It's just got to be a battle between you and me, hasn't it!" He opened his eyes again and found hers still glued to his. In the soft lamplight he thought her the most beautiful creature who ever breathed. He wondered that his heart could manage to go on beating, it was so congested with love and longing and lust for her - tender, ardent, and fierce. "So it would seem," he said at last.

HE FOLLOWING MORNING, while her parents were dealing with all the correspondence that had piled up in their absence, Kathleen slipped over to her Aunt Daphne's, "just to say hello, and we're back, and what a lovely time we all had," she

explained as she tripped to the front door. "And to tell her all about darling Chuck," Hilda commented to Frank after she had gone.

"And about Michael Harding," he added. "Yes, I wonder if Daphne knew all along about Michael?" Hilda mused. "I'll bet she did. If Kathleen knew, then Daphne did. She tells her everything.'

A little knot of fear curled and uncurled itself in the pit of Frank's stomach. He knew he was alive again. Kathleen stayed to luncheon; it took that long just to exhaust the wonders of the Champlain, the railroad to Chicago, Chicago itself, "Yuletide" in America, the marvel of the Pullman dining car ... Manhattan Boston. They had reached the semolina before she even mentioned the name of Chuck Burgoyne. But when she did, the floodgates opened and Aunt Daphne was left in no doubt as to the width, breadth, height, and depth of her feeling for the young man.