"She merely went. She went—and was charming. You see—she caught onto my naïve assumptions, and she was being paid, and it amused her to be thought of as just an ordinary girl—a debutante, or the like—for whom a smart young physicist was falling like a ton of bricks." He looked at me again. His explanation was coming more easily. "Do you get the picture?"
"She must be bright. As well as attractive."
He nodded. "She has a sense of drama. All I did—feeling suffused that evening with love—was to take her to her apartment and bid her a pleasant good night. She asked me in—sure. Even tried to argue me in. But I was thinking in terms of the long and sentimental pursuit. Or—at least—decorum. Not-the-first-night, baby. That's me. Gentleman of the old school. I extracted her phone number—it wasn't difficult—and escorted her home, and went out to Brooklyn to my flat—and dreamed into my pipesmoke. Happy me."
He was silent for so long that I said, "And then?"
"I called her up the next afternoon. She was busy." A muscle shaped itself in his temple, twitched, vanished. "So I made a date for another evening. We had dinner and danced around—at the Stork. On dough you lent me. And that evening I accepted the invitation to go into her apartment with her. You see—she wasn't merely diverted by a dope—but she felt she owed me something. Something that corporation had paid for. Only—"
"It was different for her."
He seemed surprised. "How'd you know?"
"I'm thinking of the difference that would understandably exist between a guy who was paying—and a guy in love with you."
"It upset her."
"So she tried to duck you."