Some dreams can’t be shut off. As she drifted toward the surface of the water a white shadow crossed above her and twisted under her face. Its white was not a pure white, and there were dark objects fastened to its shoulders. Deane wasn’t afraid. The creature didn’t want her. It didn’t have any sense; but it was close and revolting. In her dream she floated slowly upward. She was strong and disdainful, but that didn’t push the creature from her. She rose slowly, grimly, with hate—motionless. Her hair caught the surface of the water. Stars poured into her eyes, the white shadow faded, and she awakened. She had gone into the bathroom and washed her teeth.
In the dining room Deane remembered this dream and her feeling for the snub-faced shadow. Carol leaned toward her. She did not fear him. She did not move from him, but she wanted clean air and a chance to brush her teeth.
“Carol,” she said, “Martin and I are very good friends. I believe in him.”
Carol lit another cigarette. He was bewildered. It was unfair. He had gone to Deane as a pal. He had tried to help her. His eloquent monologue still boomed within him. Then a friendly sorrow for himself killed some of the pain. He had done his duty although it had been unappreciated. He saw women—all womankind rotating under the phallic thumb of bestial domination. He shivered, reached for the check and stood up. Deane noticed that he left no tip for the waiter.
She hurried home and Carol returned to his hotel. He sat carefully on the edge of his bed and looked out at the moving cars and people. His face was serious. Deane needed him. His affection would win over this—this—he put his head down on the pillow and refused to think any more.
Deane glanced at the clock. Only an hour to wait. She was glad that Martin was coming at five. She was glad to get out of her tailored clothes and into the bath. It would be comfortable to feel her skin against the warm porcelain; to smell the soap and to watch the steam cover the glass. There was no aroma from the step-ins dropped upon the tile. Only the faint resonance of a discriminate healthiness from the underclothes was in the corner. Deane slipped into the tub, still wearing her brassiere and her wristwatch. Impatiently she took them off and now, she lay flat across the shoulders of the tub. Reaching around, with her eyes closed, she felt the cake of soap next her hips. She weighed it in her hands for an absent moment, thinking of Martin, and with a slow smile laid the bar upon one breast, which she had candidly lifted out of the water. The pride she held in her own body seemed an important thing to her and she constantly soaped the skin around her nipple in amusement—but laved it also, in possibilities too far to speak of, even to herself. At last the warmth of the bath claimed her more expressively than she had believed it could; and she remembered, with a shiver, the snows of childhood and buried herself again in the heat of the tub. One of her hands went gently, but shockingly to her knee; and again with a smile, not understandable, she lifted her body out of the water, which rang in constant drops of different colors from her naked throat.
While she dressed, she thought of her earrings. She chose a slender East Indian pair of beaten silver. They were long, nearly touching her bare shoulders, and of a deceptive quietness. She looked at her slippers—gold, vermilion, rust—at last selecting ones of purple from which she decided her gown. Its bodice, which she laced and tied, peasant fashion, closed tightly about her waist. The skirt swung slowly from her hips. She looked once more into the mirror and fastened her hair on one side behind her ear.
When Martin came, he put his arms around her, kissing her earrings and her throat, the scented smooth hollow under her arm, pressing her so close to him that she trembled.