He considered for a moment, and the prospect of seeing her again at breakfast overrode common sense. “I don’t think it’s as urgent as that,” he said. “You can go out tomorrow and find a place. I’d go with you, but I might be recognized, and that wouldn’t look too well, either.”
“I’ve certainly loused things up,” she said.
“You haven’t,” Conway assured her. “And I’m grateful to you for wanting to be on my side.” It would do no harm to let her think he believed her. And, he reflected, perhaps he did.
She came over and sat beside him on the settee. “Thank you for saying that,” she said. “It’s been so awful for you, and all I’ve done is complicate things, when I really wanted to be of some help, in some way. Please believe me.” She was very close; he looked down at the soft, warm eyes, the red, inviting mouth, and it was inevitable: his arms went round her, and their lips met, gently at first, then with increasing ardor, as each felt the urgency of the other’s desire.
She drew away and looked up at him gravely. “You didn’t love her, did you?”
“No,” he said, and then stopped. Had this whole performance been a trap? He kissed her again. If it was, it was a snare of perfumed velvet and satin and rose petals. This time it was Conway who broke the embrace and looked at her. “I didn’t love her. But you were wrong in thinking that I couldn’t stand her or that she was driving me crazy, or that I killed her. I just wasn’t in love with her any more.”
She raised her face to his, and her humid lips mutely asked to be kissed. Afterward, her arms tightly about him, she asked, “Do you love me?”
“Yes. Yes — I think so. It’s all a little bewildering.”
“I know,” she said.
“When did you begin to think you loved me?” Then she laughed. “That sounds awfully ingenue, doesn’t it?”