“You are, you vixen!”
“Yes,” she said comfortably, “I am—if you’ll have me. I told you that before. And I meant it. Bought and paid for.”
She was waiting to be kissed; I pushed her away. “Confound it, woman, I don’t want you ‘bought and paid for’.”
It did not faze her. “I put it badly. Paid for—but not bought. I’m here because I want to be here. Now will you kiss me, please?”
So help me, up to that moment she had not turned on the sex, not really. When she saw that the answer was yes, she did so and it was like summer sun coming out from a cloud. That is inadequate but it will have to do.
She had kissed me once before; this time she kissed me. The French are smart; they have two words for it . . . this was the other one. I felt myself sinking into a warm golden haze and I did not ever want to come up.
Finally I had to break and gasped. “I think I’ll sit down for a minute.”
She said, “Thank you, Sam,” and let me.
“Mary,” I said presently, “Mary, my dear, there is something you possibly could do for me.”
“Yes?” she said eagerly.
“Tell me how in the name of Ned a person gets anything to eat around here? I’m starved. No breakfast.”
She looked startled; I suppose she had expected something else. But she answered, “Why, certainly!”
I don’t know where she went nor how she did it. She may have butted into the White House pantry and helped herself. But she returned in a few minutes with a tray of sandwiches and two bottles of beer. Corned beef and rye put the roses back in my cheeks. I was cleaning up my third when I said, “Mary, how long do you figure that meeting will last?”
“Let me see,” she answered, “fourteen people, including the Old Man. I give it a minimum of two hours. Why?”
“In that case,” I said, swallowing the last bite, “we have time to duck out of here, find a registry office, get married, and get back before the Old Man misses us.”
She did not answer and she did not look at me. Instead she stared at the bubbles in her beer. “Well?” I insisted.
She raised her eyes. “I’ll do it if you say so. I’m not welshing. But I’m not going to start out by lying to you. I would rather we didn’t.”
“You don’t want to marry me?”
“Sam, I don’t think you are ready to get married.”
“Speak for yourself!”
“Don’t be angry, my dear. I’m not holding out—honest. You can have me with or without a contract, anywhere, anywhen, anyway. But you don’t know me yet. Get acquainted with me; you might change your mind.”
“I’m not in the habit of changing my mind.” She glanced up without answering, then looked away sadly. I felt my face get hot. “That was a very special circumstance,” I protested. “It could not happen to us again in a hundred years. That wasn’t really me talking; it was—”
She stopped me. “I know, Sam. And now you want to prove to me that it didn’t really happen or at least that you are sure of your own mind now. But you don’t have to prove anything. I won’t run out on you and I don’t mistrust you. Take me away on a weekend; better yet, move into my apartment. If you find that I wear well, there’s always time to make me what great grandmother called an ‘honest woman’, heaven knows why.”
I must have looked sullen; I felt so. She put a hand on mine and said seriously, “Take a look at the map, Sam.”
I turned my head and looked. Red as ever, or more so—it seemed to me that the danger zone around El Paso had increased. She went on, “Let’s get this mess cleaned up first, dear. Then, if you still want to, ask me again. In the meantime, you can have the privileges without the responsibilities.”
What could be fairer than that? The only trouble was that it was not the way I wanted it. Why will a man who has been avoiding marriage like the plague suddenly decide that nothing less will suit him? I had seen it happen a hundred times and never understood it; now I was doing it myself.