Free Onyx by Jacqueline; Briskin Page A

fix the study clock I told him. Since then he’s been interested in motorcars. He marks his journals and magazines to read me the news about them.” She spoke rapidly.
    She’s lying , Tom thought. Hurt, angry, he tasted the bitterness of rejection. Clearly, her father wouldn’t approve of him, any more than her uncle had. She’s a rotten liar . The small muscles below her cheeks worked as she fought back tears, and to his rush of other emotions was added an infuriating urge to take her in his arms and comfort her.
    â€œIn that case,” he said coldly, “he and I will have something to talk about.”
    â€œThe doctors don’t allow him visitors.”
    â€œNone?”
    â€œNot yet.”
    â€œI see.”
    She drew a deep breath. “Thursdays I shop at J. L. Hudson’s. Would you believe it? At two thirty I am invariably in the dry goods department.”
    Sneaking, Tom thought. Do I want to sneak?
    She gripped her parasol handle. “Thursday,” she said.
    â€œThursday?”
    She nodded, smiling. It was a timidly hopeful little smile.
    â€œBy coincidence that’s the exact time I do my own ribbon shopping,” he teased. He took her arm, leading her swiftly down the stone steps. Laughing breathlessly, they emerged from City Hall.
    IV
    That Sunday afternoon Antonia led Claude Hutchinson to the high-ceilinged drawing room that, inevitably, reminded her of that unhappy Dessert Social. Setting the box of Duval’s divinity fudge that Claude had handed her on the round table, she turned to him. Her face was very white.
    â€œClaude, you mustn’t visit unless it’s to see Uncle.”
    â€œBut you have a sweet tooth, Antonia, and I promised him to feed it in his absence.”
    â€œNo,” she said, fiddling with the bric-a-brac on the whatnot.
    A Meissen angel nearly toppled: with a gasp she rescued it. “You aren’t to call on me , Claude.”
    Claude sat on a love seat, hunching his shoulders. He was not overweight, yet his obvious distress gave an obese ungainliness to his movements. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
    â€œYou never gave me any reason to hope,” he said. “Everything I do is because I … care for you, Antonia.”
    â€œClaude, you’re so kind …” She had not realized how profoundly he’d cared for her, and she struggled against tears.
    â€œI assumed it was because of your age.” He stared down at his knees. “That’s why I never declared myself.”
    â€œThere’s somebody else. We’ve known one another a long time.”
    â€œHow long?”
    â€œSince the first week I came to Detroit.”
    â€œWell, well, what a discovery,” he said, attempting to disguise his misery with a jocular comment.
    There was a long silence. He did not raise his head.
    â€œClaude, you’re too nice.… I feel terrible about this.” Her voice shook. “I never should have permitted Uncle to keep inviting you. It’s all my fault.”
    â€œSo that’s an end to that,” he said in the same heavy, jesting note, and pushed to his feet. His shoulders bent, he walked cumbersomely from the room. She followed.
    After the front door closed behind him, she sank into a straight-backed, comfortless hall chair, burying her face in her hands. It was not in Antonia to witness Claude’s hurt and humiliation without feeling the pangs as keenly as he.
    V
    Belle Isle, the city’s largest park, boasted not only the ice-skating pavilion but also a shingled building that housed the Detroit Boat Club (the country’s oldest river boat club), tennis courts, a baseball diamond, a deer park. However, this sunlit Thursday afternoon Tom and Antonia avoided these attractions, meandering along a seldom used path where the marsh had been dredged. Oaks and maples dappled the sunshine as they walked around a little pond. Halting at a bench, Tom used his