“Is this the beginning?”
“Oh yes. And don’t wait too long. No don’t wait—”
In the night she lay curled around him with her head below his chest and stroked it softly across him from one flank to another and then came up to put her lips on his and put her arms around him and said, “You’re so lovely and loyal when you are asleep and you didn’t wake and didn’t wake. I thought you wouldn’t and it was lovely. You were so loyal to me. Did you think it was a dream? Don’t wake. I’m going to sleep but if I don’t I’ll be a wild girl. She stays awake and takes care of you. You sleep and know I’m here. Please sleep.”
In the morning when he woke there was the lovely body that he knew close against him and he looked and saw the waxed-wood dark shoulders and neck and the fair tawny head close and smooth lying as a small animal and he shifted down in the bed and turned toward her and kissed her forehead with her hair under his lips and then her eyes and then gently, her mouth.
“I’m asleep.”
“So was I.”
“I know. Feel how strange. All night it was wonderful how strange.
“Not strange.
“Say so if you want. Oh we fit so wonderfully. Can we both go to sleep?”
“Do you want to be asleep?”
“Us both asleep.” “I’ll try.”
“Are you asleep?” “No.”
“Please try.”
“I’m trying.”
“Shut your eyes then. How can you sleep if you won’t shut your eyes?”
“I like to see you in the morning all new and strange.”
“Was I good to invent it?”
“Don’t talk.”
“It’s the only way to slow things. I have already. Couldn’t you tell? Of course you could. Couldn’t you tell now and now and now like our hearts beating together it is the same I know it’s only that that counts but we don’t count it’s so lovely and so good so good and lovely—”
She came back to the big room and went to the mirror and sat and brushed her hair looking at herself critically.
“Let’s have breakfast in bed,” she said. “And can we have champagne if it’s not wicked? In the brut they have Lanson and Perrier-Jouet of the good. May I ring?”
“Yes,” he said and went under the shower. Before he put it on full force he could hear her voice on the telephone.
When he came out she was sitting back very formally against two pillows with all the pillows neatly shaken out and placed two and two at the head of the bed.
“Do I look all right with my head wet?”
“It’s just damp. You dried it with the towel.”
“I can cut it shorter on the forehead. I can do that myself. Or you can.
“I’d like it if it came over your eyes.
“Maybe it will,” she said. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll get tired of being classical. And today we’ll stay on the beach all through noon. We’ll go way far down it and we can tan really when the people all come in for lunch and then we’ll ride to St. Jean to eat when we’re hungry at the Bar Basque. But first you’ll make us go to the beach because we need to.”
“Good.”
David moved a chair over and put his hand close on hers and she looked at him and said, “Two days ago I understood every thing and then the absinthe made me turn on it.”
“I know,” David told her. “You couldn’t help it.”
“But I hurt you about the clippings.”
“No,” he said. “You tried. You didn’t make it.”
“I’m so sorry, David. Please believe me.”
“Everybody has strange things that mean things to them. You couldn’t help it.”
“No,” the girl said and shook her head.
“It’s all right then,” David said. “Don’t cry. It’s all right.”
“I never cry,” she said. “But I can’t help it.”
“I know it and you’re beautiful when you cry.
“No. Don’t say it. But I never cried before did I?”
“Never.”
“But will it be bad for you if we stay here just two days on