She looked particularly beautiful that morning and she smiled at their secret and he smiled at her and then took his remorse to the cafe. He did not think he would make it but he did and
later when Catherine came he was finishing his second absinthe and the remorse was gone.
“How are you, Devil?” he said.
“I’m your devil,” she said. “Could I have one of those too?” The waiter went away pleased to see her looking so handsome and so happy and she said, “What was it?”
“I just felt rotten but I feel fine now.”
“Was it that bad?”
“No,” he lied.
She shook her head. “I’m so sorry. I hoped there wouldn’t be any bad at all.”
“It went away.
“That’s good. Isn’t it lovely to be here in the summer and no one here? I thought of something.”
“Already?”
“We can stay on and not go to the sea. This is ours now. The town and here. We could stay here and then drive back straight through to la Napoule.”
“There aren’t many more moves to make.”
“Don’t. We’ve only just started.”
“Yes . . . we can always go back where we started.”
“Of course we can and we will.”
“Let’s not talk about it,” he said.
He had felt it start to come back and he took a long sip of his drink.
“It’s a very strange thing,” he said. “This drink tastes exactly like remorse. It has the true taste of it and yet it takes it away.”
“I don’t like you to have to take it for that. We aren’t like that. We mustn’t be.”
“Maybe I am.”
“You mustn’t be.” She took a long sip out of her glass and another long sip and looked around and then at him. “I can do it. Look at me and watch it happen. Here in the outdoor cafe of
The Palace in Madrid and you can see the Prado and the street and the sprinklers under the trees so it’s real. It’s awfully brusque. But I can do it. You can see. Look. The lips are your girl again and I’m all the things you really want. Haven’t I done it? Tell me.
“You didn’t have to.”
“Do you like me as a girl,” she said very seriously and then smiled.
“Yes,” he said.
“That’s good,” she said. “I’m glad someone likes it because it’s a god damned bore.”
“Don’t do it then.”
“Didn’t you hear me say I did it? Didn’t you watch me do it? Do you want me to wrench myself around and tear myself in two because you can’t make up your mind? Because you won’t stay with anything?”
“Would you hold it down?”
“Why should I hold it down? You want a girl don’t you? Don’t you want everything that goes with it? Scenes, hysteria, false accusations, temperament isn’t that it? I’m holding it down. I won’t make you uncomfortable in front of the waiter. I won’t make the waiter uncomfortable. I’ll read my damned mail. Can we send up and get my mail?”
“I’ll go up and get it.”
“No. I shouldn’t be here by myself.”
“That’s right,” he said.
“You see? That was why I said to send for it.”
“They wouldn’t give a hotones the key to the room. That was why I said I’d go.”
“I’m over it,” Catherine said. “I’m not going to act that way. Why should I act that way to you? It was ludicrous and un dignified. It was so silly I won’t even ask you to forgive me. Besides I have to go up to the room anyway.
“Now?”
“Because I’m a god damned woman. I thought if I’d be a girl and stay a girl I’d have a baby at least. Not even that.”
‘That could be my fault.”
“Don’t let’s ever talk about faults. You stay here and I’ll bring back the mail. We’ll read our mail and be nice good intelligent American tourists who are disappointed because they came to Madrid at the wrong time of year.”
At lunch Catherine said, “We’ll go back to Ia Napoule. There is no one there and we’ll be quiet and good and work and take care of each other. We can drive to Aix too and see all the Cezanne country. We didn’t stay there long enough before.”