Free OPUS 21 by Philip Wylie Page B

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."

    He was still more surprised. "She told me she'd be out of town for a couple of weeks."

    "And you waited--"

    "--the all-time eager beaver. And phoned. She sounded--odd. She asked me if I'd like to come up to her place for dinner--said she didn't feel like going out. She cooked. I know now that she had planned to tell me--that night. Instead--well, she didn't. She said she worked some as a model--which she had done. She said she had an income--not said, just hinted. I asked her to marry me--around three A.M."

    "Just what did she do about that?"

    "She cried. Quietly. Told me that she'd taken a fall out of marriage--which was also true. Didn't want to risk it again--not without being sure of the guy. And said there weren't any such guys as--she needed."

    "Pretty close to being pretty nice."

    Paul answered the door, took the drink, and put his own dollar on Karl's tray. "It went that way for about two months. Then she told me." His ice clinked without his volition. "The whole story--straight out--beginning at dinner one evening in the Waldorf.
    The guy she married--a smug, sadistic twirp. Getting divorced. Coming to New York.
    Scrimping along on modeling jobs. Running into Hattie Blaine. Ever heard of her?"

    Who hadn't? Hattie was madam to Manhattan's upper set. I gave a nod.

    "Hattie sold her on the idea--after quite a campaign. Marcia went to work. That was about three years ago. I took her home that night--placidly enough--and went for the walk that lasts till they put out the sidewalks again. Then I phoned Johann I was sick--and got sick, drinking. For a month or so more, I tried the old Presbyterian anodyne: work.
    No use."

    "Not when you're young."

    "Later?"

    "It comes with time. Go ahead."

    "When I had all but burned out my main bearings, I phoned her. Maybe you won't believe it--but Marcia was going to phone me that evening. We talked it over. She moved to my flat and got a job."

    "So?"

    "We might get married."

    "She want to?"

    "She refuses--now. I'm not always certain I want to, myself." He stuck his forefinger into his shoe and tugged at the counter. "And I don't know why. Why I want to marry her. Why I'm uncertain."

    "How do your--?" I broke that off.

    But he got it. "My friends think she's swell. You gathered she was good-looking.
    She's a tall, slender gal with light-brown hair and blue eyes. Quiet. You'd never think--I But I went into that, didn't I? She attended college, in Iowa, for a year--and she likes to read. By that I mean--"

    "Nobody else--?"

    "Christ, no. They think she's a working gal--which she is, now: a nice friend of mine."

    "Someday--" I stopped there--again.

    "Yes." His face whitened. "A putty-chinned, overweight lodge brother from Keokuk, just tight enough to miss the stony stare and come up with the big hello. It's happened."

    "I see."

    "She went home and had hysterics."

    "Bring her over."

    Paul looked at me thoughtfully. "You are upset."

    "Sure. Now. You are. So bring her over. Not tonight--or tomorrow night. I'm busy."

    "What about lunch tomorrow? She's not working and I can slide out."

    "Lunch, then. Come around one."

    The family's very fond of Paul and a good many of us have tried to spoil him. He was one of those irresistible kids--the kind that wears glasses, has braces on his teeth, raises bizarre pets, looks up everything in the encyclopedia, and is always engaged in a project about five years ahead of his current age--so that he is always in deep water and needs help. Everybody helped Paul. When he grew up--through one of the most gangling and precocious adolescences in