"Hi!"
"Paul is apt to barge in here any minute."
"I know. I thought he might." She shut the door.
I went over to the window and squinted through the dark heat at the Jersey rivage. "He might. And you were going to have him sent in. You were going to go through a prepared routine. You were going to disillusion him—but quick—break his heart right now—and get it over with. You were going to tell him about the cute salesman who dropped in around four. The newspaper publisher who stopped by at five. The nice banker who hung around till he was late for dinner. And the college kid who'd just left."
"You read minds," she said.
"Don't."
"Why not?" She walked over to me. "What else? All you had to do the other day was to take one quick look at me and see I was a tramp. Oh—I could feel you paw me. I could see you putting your damned twenty bucks on my bureau. You knew—so you knew how to look. And—sooner or later—everybody would know. And know how to look. And look that way. And where would a good kid's wife be, then?"
"You might have thought of that sooner," I said, ignoring the false charges for the moment.
"I suppose I make the world go around! What did I think about? What would anybody think about? They'd think—this is how a sweet guy treats a nice girl. This is how he talks. This is how he holds your hand. Holds your hand, for God's sake! You'd get a real kick out of that—the realest one you'd had in years. You'd think—maybe. Maybe the life could end. Maybe I could have an apartment someplace and kids and a guy people respected. Maybe I could get into the bridge games and the theater parties and the midnight snacks next door and the church suppers, even, and drive a sedan around a suburb, buying groceries at the chain stores and not forgetting to pick up Junior's shoes."