I got it, then. "Not—other women, Yvonne. Men, huh?"
She shuddered. You don't see people shudder very often—in restaurants, anyway. She shuddered because that was how it made her feel. She couldn't help it. And when the spasm passed, her hands went on trembling—like glassware vibrating after a certain right note has been struck. "He hired an assistant—a young college graduate—that I liked, at first. Then—one day—I got so bored and lonely I went into the greenhouses, which I hated, looking for them. And I found them, all right."
She began to cry again—and to talk through the tears. "It was only—two weeks ago. Rol was dreadfully upset. He promised—everything on earth he could think of. And I stayed a week more—but it was simply too awful. I finally bought tickets. I—I don't like living at home—mother's such a sobby mess all the time. I wanted to see dad—and of course he was about ready to go out and kill Rol. Somebody—somebody—" her voice sank—"told me that if I read the Kinsey Report I'd see that what happened to Rol happened to maybe a third of the men like Rol. I guess it does. What difference does that make?"
Children, I thought. No. Not even children. Children is just what they weren't—just what they'd never been—or just what, if they'd ever been, they refused to let themselves remember. These angel-pusses, growing up everywhere in America, psychologically hamstrung or maybe wingstrung in their cribs. Turned into demons by their right-thinking, practical, realistic, common-sense, hard-headed fathers and mothers. Marrying, in no better condition for marriage than nuns and eunuchs. Phooie.
I slid my wrist in my cuff. It was after three. "Yvonne," I said, "are you busy tonight?"
"I was going to have dinner with dad—as usual. He bucks me up."
"Maybe you could do with a substitute bucker-upper, for a change."
"Dad told me I ought to go out—call up old friends—"
"The hell with what dad told you. And I haven't asked you, yet. I'm fussy, myself. Can you dance?"