Free Darker Than You Think by Unknown Page B

association, and started to lift
his glass. A shudder made it tremble in his hand, and the pale drink
splashed on his fingers.
    "Too
much mystery is alarming." He set the glass down carefully. "I'm
really afraid of you."
    "So?"
She watched him wipe the cold stickiness of the spilled drink off his
fingers, the smile on her white mobile face seeming faintly
malicious, as if she were laughing at him secretly. "Really,
Barbee, you're the dangerous one."
    Barbee
looked down uncomfortably, and sipped his drink. Until tonight, he
had thought he knew about women—far too much about them. But
April Bell baffled him.
    "You
see, Barbee, I've tried to build an illusion." Her cool voice
mocked him with that secret laughter. "You've made me very
happy, accepting it. Surely you wouldn't want me to shatter it now?"
    "I
do," he said soberly. "Please, April."
    She
nodded, and red lights burned in her sleek hair.
    "Very
well, Barbee," she purred. "For you, I'll drop my painted
veil."
    She
set down her glass, and leaned toward him with her round arms crossed
on the tiny black table. The white curves of her shoulders and her
breasts were near him. Faintly, he thought he caught the natural odor
of her body, a light, dry, clean fragrance—he was glad it had
escaped the advertising crusades of the soap manufacturers. Her husky
voice dropped to match his own soberness.
    "I'm
just a simple farmer's daughter, really," she told him. "I
was born here in Clarendon county-—my parents had a little
dairy up the river, just beyond the railroad bridge. I used to walk
half a mile every morning to catch the school bus."
    Her
lips made a quick half smile.
    "Well,
Barbee—does that shatter my precious illusion enough to suit
you?"
    Barbee
shook his head.
    "That
hardly dents it. Please go on."
    Her
white expressive face looked troubled.
    "Please,
Will," she begged softly. "I'd rather not tell you any more
about me—not tonight, anyhow. That illusion is my shell. I'd be
helpless without it, and not very pretty. Don't make me break it. You
might not like me without it."
    "No
danger." His voice turned almost grim. "But I do want you
to go on. You see, I'm still afraid."
    She
sipped her daiquiri, and her cool green eyes studied his face. That
secret laughter had left them. She frowned a little, and then smiled
again with that air of warm accord.
    "I
warn you—it gets a little sordid."
    "I
can take it," he promised her. "I want to know you—so
that I can like you more."
    "I
hope so." She smiled. "Here goes."
    Her
mobile face made a quick grimace of distaste.
    "My
parents didn't get on together—that's all the trouble, really."
Her low voice was forced and uneven. "My father—but
there's no use digging up the unpleasant details. The year I was
nine, Mother took me to California. Father kept the other children.
It's that cheap, ugly background that I built my illusion to hide."
    She
drained her glass nervously.
    "You
see, there wasn't any alimony." Her flat voice turned bitter.
"Mother took her own name back. She worked to keep us.
Hash-slinger. Salesgirl, stenographer, carhop. Movie extra. Finally
she got a few character bits, but it was pretty rough sledding for
her.
    She
lived for me, and tried to bring me up to play the game a little
shrewder.
    "Mother
had a poor opinion of men—with reason enough, I'm afraid. She
tried to fit me to protect myself. She made me—well, call me a
she-wolf." Her fine teeth flashed through an uneasy little
smile. "And here I am, Barbee. Mother managed to put me through
school. Somehow, all those years, she kept her insurance paid up. I
had a few thousand dollars when she died. By the time that's gone, if
I do as she taught me—"
    She
made a wry little face, and tried to smile.
    "That's
the picture, Will. I'm a ruthless beast of prey." She pushed her
empty glass aside abruptly—the gesture seemed nervous, somehow
defiant. "How do you like me now?"
    Shifting
uncomfortably before the