Her silence shook Joe a little. Darting an uneasy glance at her, he asked combatively: “Why don’t you want to marry me?”
Elaine closed her eyes and let her head fall back. Joe’s eyes fastened on the pulse in her wan throat. “Ah, don’t let’s begin that again,” she said in a lifeless voice. “It gets us nowhere. . . . I love you! Isn’t that enough?”
A spark returned to Joe’s eyes; his lips pushed out a little. “But where is it going to land us?” he said. “We’ve got to thresh the thing out.”
Elaine opened her eyes. “Oh for heaven’s sake give me a cigarette and let’s stop arguing about ourselves.”
He put the cigarette between her lips and lighted it. “Why don’t you want to marry me?” he persisted.
“If I marry, commonsense tells me it ought to be a man of my own sort. . . .”
“This is new!” put in Joe. “Where did you get it?”
“. . . This madness will pass. What would we have then?”
“You mean one of the slick young fellows I meet around here? How often have you told me that their smoothness made you sick? You said it was my commonness and coarseness and naturalness that attracted you in the beginning.”
“Sure, I said it; what good to remind me of it now.”