"I will grant you the truth of all three."
"Thanks," she said with a sly-looking smile. "But the point is, Charles, that a girl with a bit of money in the top of her stocking—and a brain in her head—wonders whether the gentleman is interested in the money, or the shape of her stocking. She is more interested in having the man want her for the aforementioned brain, I think. She'd like to feel that the gentleman in question would still be interested if the shape of the stocking changed for the worst with age and the money disappeared."
Farradyne looked at her and wondered again what she was and what she was after. If nothing else, Carolyn was a consummate actress. He wanted very much to take his face in his hands and ponder this problem deeply, but there was no time. He had to reply at once or have the appearance of a man who must make a careful answer. He walked across the room and took Carolyn by the shoulders and shook her gently. He bent down and kissed her and he found that the warm and eager response was back again, even though he touched her only with his lips and his hands on her warm shoulders.
"Let's leave it just that way," he told her. "Sooner or later something will give me away—and then you will know whether I am after your body, your money or your mind." Farradyne kissed her again, and again lightly. "Until you know, nothing I say will convince you of anything."
Farradyne still had her shoulders under his palms; Carolyn moved forward into his arms and rested against him. She put up her face for his kiss, and held herself against him, close. Then she said dreamily, "You're a nice sort of guy, Charles, and I'll be very happy to leave it that way. Maybe you'll be the one who stays."
Farradyne recoiled mentally and hoped that his instinctive revulsion was not noticed. It was too easy to forget what Carolyn represented when Carolyn went soft and sweet and eager. He wanted to be a male Mata Hari; he wanted to lure her on, to caress her into breathless acquiescence and then walk out with a cold smile to show his contempt.
Then he relaxed—and hoped that the muscles of his body had not undergone the change that his mind had—and decided if this were part of the game he had to play to cut the hellblossom-hellflower-love lotus ring out of the human culture, it was nice work. He recalled reading in history, as a child, another, but mild drug, marijuana, had multiple names.... His job would have been infinitely more difficult if Carolyn had been a gawky ugly duckling with buck teeth and a pasty complexion.
"Charles," she breathed, "take me out into the dark?"
He laughed lightly. "Where?"
She leaned way back, arching her fine back. "I want to go out to some dark gin mill and dance among the smoke and the natives and the throbbing of tomtoms."