Carla closed her eyes. “That’s easy for you to say,” she said after a moment. “You’re a man, and so it’s an easy way for you to look at things.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I’m a woman and you’re a man. You can’t look at things from a woman’s point of view. A woman wants more than beauty, Charles. Oh, I get as much pleasure from our love as you do. I won’t argue with you on that score. But a woman needs security — not just the security of a rich husband. A woman wants her husband and her lover to be the same person.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure,” she answered honestly. “It’s hard to explain to a man. I know you love me, Charles, but I need a more tangible proof of your love. Marriage give a woman that sort of proof. Do you understand?”
He nodded slowly. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I know what you mean, but I’m not going to marry you.”
“Why not?”
He flicked his cigarette in a heavy copper ashtray and studied the glowing tip thoughtfully. “Perhaps it’s because I’m a man,” he replied. “Perhaps it’s because I’m Ronald’s friend, and I know how much he wants and needs you. But neither of those things are the main reason.
“The big thing is the value I place on my freedom. Carla, I don’t want to be responsible for anything, and definitely not for another person’s happiness. Look at the world we live in. Our every action is in the shadow of the bomb. For God’s sake, this is the first generation which can’t expect the world to outlast its own lifetime. Any day some madman might drop a bomb and blow the world to hell.”
“I know that,” she said.
“Of course,” he said. “Everybody knows that. But you have to realize how it affects our lives. Do you think it makes sense to plan for eternity, or even for ten or twenty years? I don’t. I think a person ought to live for the moment — because the sun may not rise tomorrow, and tomorrow it’s entirely possible that we’ll all be dead. Very possible. And for that reason, and for some other reasons that are imbedded in my particular personality, I believe that a person should have as much fun as he can out of life. Why worry about the future when there may not be one? Why bother with marriage?”
Carla sank into her seat. She understood what Charles was saying, and she could appreciate his philosophy. But this didn’t alter her own situation. She didn’t want to think about living for the moment. She wanted to worry about the future, about tomorrow and the next day and the one after that. If you couldn’t plan ahead, there didn’t appear to be much sense in anything.
“Charles,” she said finally, “don’t you love me?”
He sighed. “The eternal feminine question,” he said. “The question women have asked ever since Adam berated Eve for eating the damned apple. Of course I love you.”
“Then—”
“Then what?”
“Then,” she said triumphantly, “why won’t you let me divorce Ronald and marry you?”
He waited before replying, and the only sound in the plush apartment was the rhythmic ticking of the clock. “I love you,” he said at last, “but you’re not the first woman I’ve ever loved.”
“So what? I hardly came to you a virgin.”
He held up a hand. “Wait a minute; let me finish. I’ve loved women before, and I expect to love women after you. I expect to keep on loving women until I die, or at least until I become too old to participate in active love sessions.”
Carla’s cigarette had burned down, and she put it out in the ashtray. “Every man says that,” she said shortly. “Every man thinks one woman isn’t enough for him. But do you think you can handle more loving than I can give you? I’m a fairly passionate woman, Charles.”
At any other time, Carla would have blushed upon uttering such a statement. But she was caught up in the argument now. She realized that tonight was the night, that it would end in either a proposal or a break-up, and it was no time for modesty.
“Carla,” he said softly, “you are as passionate a woman as I have ever met.”
“So?”
He shook his head slowly and there was sadness in his eyes. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said. “You’re enough woman for me, as far as that goes, but I need more than one woman. There’s something wrong with me, Carla. Maybe it’s because I’ve never had to work for anything, because I’ve always been able to get whatever I wanted. But one single woman can never satisfy me.”
“You’re just talking through your hat,” she snapped. “You don’t want anybody else after we’ve been together.”
“Carla—”
“Well? Do you?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I didn’t want to tell you this,” he began. “I didn’t want to say anything about it, but I suppose it’s the only way to convince you. Please listen carefully, and please forgive me in advance if I hurt you.
“I told you not to come last night. I told you that I was busy. Right?”
She nodded.
“That wasn’t altogether true. I was busy, but I was busy with another woman. I had another woman spend the night here.”
“What?”
He closed his eyes, and she could see that it was hurting him to tell her. “Yes,” he said thinly. “I was spending the night with another woman.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You’re just making it up,” she said. “You’re just looking for an excuse, but I don’t believe it for a minute. Who was this ‘other woman?’”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Because she doesn’t exist?”
“No — she exists.”
“Then who was she?”
He swallowed. “Miss Lizzie Barkin,” he said. Lizzie — the girl who works for you.”
Carla was too stunned to speak.
“I called her on the phone,” he went on. “She remembered me from the time I had dinner at your house, and fortunately it was her night off. She came up here and we made love in the same bed where I’ve made love to you so many times. She—”
“You’re lying.”
“No,” he said. “I’m telling the truth.”
For a moment she was unable to reply. Charles wasn’t lying, she knew. Much as she wished he were, it was obvious that his words were true.
“Why?” she demanded at last, her voice little more than a whisper. “Why?”
“Because I wanted her.”
“You—”
“I wanted her,” he continued. “I wanted her the moment I saw her, just as I wanted you. I wanted her in my bed with the covers pulled over us, and I got her there, just as I got you there. I—”
“You son of a bitch!”
“Don’t talk like that. It’s the way I am, Carla, and I can’t help it. I told you all along that our affair was just that, an affair and nothing more. But—”
“You rotten son of a bitch!”
“Carla—”
There was a note of anger in his voice, but she ignored it. “You rotten bastard,” she said. “You miserable bastard. You let me fall in love with you and then threw me over for a cheap little—”
He slapped her across the face and his fingers left red marks on her cheeks.
“A cheap little slut. You have to go cheat on me with a little tramp of a—”
He slapped her again, harder this time, and she clutched her hand to her cheek.
“Don’t talk about her that way,” he commanded. “She’s as much of a woman as you are.”
“She’s a tramp,” Carla said. And he slapped her again, harder still, almost knocking her from her feet. It hurt and her eyes began welling up with tears.