"I admit it," she replied. "For that I'm sorry, Charles."
"Well, park yourself somewhere while I get into whites."
She sat down and stretched. "A highball and a cigarette?" she asked.
"The cigarette is easy," he said, handing one to her and flipping his lighter. While she puffed, he went on, "But the highball may be more difficult. I've nothing but White Star Trail aboard."
She nodded at him. "With water," she said. She relaxed into the cushions. Farradyne went and mixed her highball. She sipped it and nodded approvingly. He turned to go.
"Charles?"
He stopped. Carolyn put her glass on the tiny tray and parked her cigarette. She rose and came forward, lifting her hands to put them on his shoulders. He stood woodenly. "Charles," she asked in a soft voice, "Are you unhappy because I am not the girl you hoped I'd be?"
"How many men have you played this role for?" he asked.
Carolyn smiled, a wry smile that twisted her face. "I should slap your face for that," she said. "Because when I tell you the answer you won't believe me."
Caution came to him. He was the rookie hellflower operator, not the young man who has discovered that his girl has been playing games behind his back. He tried to fit himself into her picture and decided that according to her code of loused-up ethics she might possibly be thinking of a future: a pleasant home with rambling roses and a large lawn and a devoted husband and maybe a handful of happy children all creating the solid-citizen facade for dope running, just as her parents were doing. If this were the case, Farradyne must carry roses for his wife in one hand, toys for the kids in the other, and his hip pocket must be filled with hellflowers.