She didn’t reply. She just looked at him.
“Damn it,” he murmured, “you got me all mixed up. Now I don’t know what to think.”
She went on in a tone of self-reproach, “I tried to be subtle. Or clever. Or whatever it was. Like today on the docks, when I used the camera. But deep inside myself I knew the real reason I wanted your picture.”
He looked away from her.
She said very quietly, “I wanted to keep you with me. I had to settle for a snapshot. But later, when I left the camera on the table, I was strictly a female playing a game. What I should have done was say it openly, bluntly.”
“Say what?”
“I want you.”
He could feel his brain spinning. He fought the dizziness and managed to say, “I’m not in the market for a one-night stand.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. You know I didn’t mean it that way.”
For some moments he couldn’t speak. He was trying to adjust his thoughts. Finally he said, “This is happening too fast. We hardly know each other.”