"I could never shock them a millionth part of the amount they've shocked me."
"But you did your best?"
I laughed at that. "Sometimes." A sad confession.
"Don't you love burning brandy?"
We watched the peaches flame.
2
I took her over to the Amigo.
They had a rumba band there that would give sloe-eyed fantasies to a Norseman.
And it wasn't crowded.
I haven't said—was it necessary?—that I intended to make Mrs. Prentiss eat one or two of those gardenias. That is, I proposed in my mind to bring her to the point of withdrawing the order that I was to behave toward her in all chaste chivalry. As to what I would do beyond that, I had no idea. It could not possibly be important if I followed up a moral (or immoral) victory with what would then be an ethical (or unethical) act.