But it was important to know what her true feelings toward him were. Laughter at the wrong time could be disastrous to a man's ego!
"This time, you know there's no mistake," he said, hoping that irony was some protection. "But are you sure you want me as a husband?"
She stopped fiddling with her hair. She tilted her head and looked at him, at a body that defied the laws of anatomy and the face that belonged on a clown—except that a clown could take his face off. "Are you trying to get rid of me?" She was asking questions, not answering them.
Erica was examining him carefully and he could tell that she, unlike a male, saw each feature distinctly, saw the nose that had belonged to someone else and looked it, the jaw, originally very fine, but with contours that had since melted out of shape.
"I'm not trying to get rid of you," he said. "Maybe you want somebody nicer." He'd have to know before he could stop feeling tormented.
"Nicer?" she echoed. "Do you want me to answer that?"
She came and leaned against him. "A woman ought to have some secrets," she murmured. "But if you have to know, the first time I saw you I laughed, because you are funny. And after that, well, I saw traces of the nicest features of nearly every man I ever had a crush on. That was just the physical side."
She rested her head on his shoulder. "I didn't believe you actually were Dan. I didn't pay attention to a thing you said."
"But if you didn't believe...."