Free Cancel All Our Vows by John D. MacDonald Page A

you?”
    “Possibly because it was perfectly all right and you’re in a big tizzy about nothing at all. Damn it, they asked us out tonight. They paid the shot. I paid some attention to her. I even danced with her, you may have noticed. I think that was expected of me. She doesn’t dance well, if that makes you happier. She’s too stiff. Inhibited or something.”
    “Hah!”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Calling that woman inhibited hands me a big laugh. She’s about as inhibited as Max Baer. I know that type. It was written all over her, and all over Ellis, too, the poor man.”
    “I guess I can’t read that kind of writing.”
    “She’s a floozy, Fletcher. God, you ought to be able to see that. She’s tail, Fletcher. Every other man in the club could see it, if you couldn’t.”
    “Now who’s coarse?”
    “Sometimes there’s only one name that fits. And what’smore, I bet she doesn’t even get any pleasure out of it. I bet she just rocks back on her round heels just to see how much trouble she can make. You told me Ellis wasn’t happy with that other company. It’s as plain as the nose on your face what happened. She just ran through all the men in view and got restless. I don’t see what you see in her, frankly. That long upper lip and her mouth open all the time. Adenoidal, I’d say.”
    “I tell you, I don’t see anything in her. I’m not attracted to her. And I don’t think she—as you so deftly put it—is tail.”
    “But you’re going to find out, aren’t you?”
    “Oh for Christ’ sake, Jane! You talk like a crazy person.”
    “ I’m not crazy. But you better watch yourself, bud. You’re getting to that age. You’ve got to prove you’re a man or something. Like that time in Chicago.”
    “Let’s stay on the subject.”
    “You find the subject pretty attractive. You want to talk about her. You’re getting some kind of filthy pleasure out of talking about her, aren’t you?”
    He held his teeth tight shut for the space of three breaths. Then he said slowly, “We don’t get anywhere bickering, Jane. She’s an odd woman. Not like others we know. I’m perfectly willing to admit that. I don’t envy Ellis. It looks as though he’s got himself a hell of a problem. I don’t know what makes the woman tick.”
    “But you’d like …”
    “Please let me finish this. I’m trying to be as objective as possible. If I seemed to pay too much attention to her, I’m sorry. Maybe I did. But it wasn’t an attempt to make passes. It was an honest, though perhaps misguided, attempt to find out what motivates her. It interests me, because I want to be able to depend more and more on Ellis as time goes by. I want to know if she is going to cut loose and give him so much personal hell that he won’t be of any use to us down at the shop. I do not think we ought to see too much of them. You know I don’t like to be too close to anybody who is working for me. I seriously doubt, and I believe you do too, that there’s going to be any whispering due to my actions tonight.”
    “You don’t know …”
    “Please, honey. Just let me finish and then you can give me some more hell. I want to talk about how I feel about women. I like them, dammit. I enjoy looking at them. I inspect every pretty girl who passes me on the street. I like to look at the eighteen year olds. But God forbid that I should ever get involved with one. You can’t spend all of your time in bed, and I would have absolutely nothing else in common with a young girl except that. Now, how about women? How about Mrs. Corban? I think she is an attractive woman. You know she is. In her own way, she’s witty. Now, let us suppose that I suddenly had to go to New York, and I met her on the street there. Assume, further, that she was anxious to have me take her back to my hotel room. This is getting a bit fantastic. I don’t think I would, dear.”
    “I’ll say it’s getting fantastic.”
    “Not in the way you mean. I’m