Marcia came to the door in a few minutes. She was wearing a black dress--a thin black dress and--nothing else. Her blue eyes were defiant. "Hi!" "Paul is apt to barge in here any minute." "I know. I thought he might." She shut the door. I went over to the window and squinted through the dark heat at the Jersey rivage. "He might. And you were going to have him sent in. You were going to go through a prepared routine. You were going to disillusion him--but quick--break his heart right now--and get it over with. You were going to tell him about the cute salesman who dropped in around four. The newspaper publisher who stopped by at five. The nice banker who hung around till he was late for dinner. And the college kid who'd just left." "You read minds," she said. "Don't." "Why not?" She walked over to me. "What else? All you had to do the other day was to take one quick look at me and see I was a tramp. Oh--I could feel you paw me. I could see you putting your damned twenty bucks on my bureau. You knew--so you knew how to look. And--sooner or later--everybody would know. And know how to look. And look that way. And where would a good kid's wife be, then?" "You might have thought of that sooner," I said, ignoring the false charges for the moment. "I suppose I make the world go around! What _did_ I think about? What would anybody think about? They'd think--this is how a sweet guy treats a nice girl. This is how he talks. This is how he holds your hand. Holds your hand, for God's sake! You'd get a real kick out of that--the realest one you'd had in years. You'd think--_maybe_. _Maybe_ the life could end. Maybe I could have an apartment someplace and kids and a guy people respected. Maybe I could get into the bridge games and the theater parties and the midnight snacks next door and the church suppers, even, and drive a sedan around a suburb, buying groceries at the chain stores and not forgetting to pick up Junior's shoes." "Forsaking all others?" "Yes," she said, "I thought about that, too! I'm human. Feelings come over me. I'm maybe even like a kleptomaniac that can't resist a box of tacks in a hardware store or a pair of cheap earrings on a counter. Maybe I could learn to choke it down. Control it. I did--for months." "And now?" "Now it doesn't matter." "Months isn't years." Her eyes fixed on mine. They were not defiant now--but speculative. "Sure. So I'm human. So Paul knew that. I told him he couldn't expect a letter-perfect show, forever." "Did you?" "Certainly, I did. And what did he say? He said I couldn't expect one from him, either." "He's being pretty--devoted--right now." "That's what has to stop. That's why I hope he does come in here. That's why I asked Hattie to let me stay here--instead of just putting me on the phone exchange, the way it used to be. I wanted to go back with a bang. After the way you looked me over the other noon--that's exactly what I wanted to do." "Funny." "I see nothing funny."