The question startled her, although the introduction itself did not. She was obliged to feign a social surprise. Her inward gray eyes met mine and moved away. She drew part of an annoyed breath. She shut the book. She made up her mind to say, "I beg your pardon. Were you speaking to me?"
She had a musical voice, pitched low but not husky.
"I wondered why you were reading the Kinsey Report so avidly—and my curiosity started talking. I usually do ask people things, when I want to know. It's discourteous. But sometimes they tell me."
That made her smile a little. "You might be asking quite a question."
"Any question is quite a question. If I merely asked you how to get to Fifth Avenue, you would be telling me, in answering, where to take my life. I might be run over, doing it. I might get into a street fight. Or meet a blonde. If I asked you why you've been crying so much—that would be quite a question, too. If I were a woman, I might ask, simply—what you wore under what, and where you bought it. The answer to that one would describe dozens of your attitudes toward dozens of important matters."
She didn't say anything. If she nodded, it was the smallest of her nods. She twirled her cocktail glass, sipped the last of the amber drink, and returned to her reading.
She wanted me to know that she didn't flirt. I expressed my apperception by ordering lemon pie, which I didn't want, and coffee, which I did—and further, by leaving my table and the restaurant while my place was being cleared and my dessert brought. I went across the hot street to the newsstand and bought Time magazine—which I used to read for information and read now to keep abreast of the Biases—and the Telegram. When I came back to the bar I found the girl had also ordered coffee—and brandy. That settled it.
"My name," I said immediately, "is Philip Wylie. I'm a writer. The waiters will vouch for me. I live here."
The strain left her eyes and they widened slightly. "I've read lots of things you've written! For heaven's sake!"
Most Americans who get around have read lots of the things I've written. This is a great instant advantage—though often a present handicap—in picking up strangers. They are at first agreeably surprised; but they generally expect writers to "be like" the characters in their books—from God alone knows what an abysmal lack of imagination—and are therefore eventually disappointed.