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He opened the door of the house as well and followed her up the stairs. The stairs were unusually steep that evening — at least they seemed that way to her. As usual he had left his door unlocked, and when she stepped into the room he walked in after her and reached to take her in his arms.

She drew back involuntarily.

“Hey!” He grinned and reached out for her again, and once again she stepped back and avoided his embrace. His features contorted into a puzzled expression.

“Danny,” she said thinly, “sit down. These’s something I have to tell you.”

He started to protest, then shrugged and sat down on the edge of the cot. Carla remained standing. She pulled a cigarette from her purse and lit it herself, extinguishing the match with a nervous flick of her wrist and letting it fall to the floor. Then she walked back and forth in the little room while he waited patiently. Finally she couldn’t prolong the moment any further. She turned to him, trying to avoid his eyes, and spoke softly and quickly.

“Danny,” she said, “I am not going to marry you.”

She darted a glance at his face and then looked away, unable to gaze at the expression she saw there. It was composed of equal parts of disbelief and horror.

“If... if this is your idea of a joke—”

“It’s not a joke.”

He stood up and took a hesitant step in her direction. “I think you’d better explain,” he said. “I think you better let me know just what in hell you’re trying to pull.”

“Then sit down.”

“The hell I’ll sit down!”

“Well, I can’t talk with you breathing in my face, damn it.” He sat down, and she closed her eyes for a long moment. She wished that she could die, that she could just keep her eyes shut tight and quietly cease to exist.

She opened her eyes.

He was still sitting on the bed, waiting for her to speak. The vein in his left temple stood out in bold relief. His breath came very slowly.

For a second she wished that she hated him. If he were someone she hated, it would be pleasant to torture him, pleasant to twist the knife in between his ribs and watch him writhe in agony. But he was a man she loved, the man she loved, and she shared his agony.

Then, slowly and laboriously, she told him. She let him have both barrels from beginning to end and he heard her without interruption. She told him that that the expensive house did matter and the MG mattered and the clothes in her closet mattered. She told him that everything was fine as it was, that Ronald was agreeable and nobody would ever bother them, that she loved him but couldn’t he see that marriage didn’t make any sense?

She told him everything, but as she spoke she heard her words from his point of view and realized how hollow and ugly they must have been sounding to him. After she finished neither of them said a word for several minutes and the silence of the room was unbearable. At last he raised his eyes to hers and she saw that they were dead and dull, empty and vacuous.

“Get out,” he said.

“Danny—”

“Get out.”

Her temper flared. “Damn you, can’t you understand anything? Do you think I want a passel of brats in my hair all day long? Do you think all I want to do is switch one filthy slum for another?”

“Get out,’ he said when she had finished. “I made a big mistake, Carla. I fell in love with the most complete bitch that ever walked the earth.

“Get out before I throw you out.”

Chapter Sixteen

It was ten o’clock and the night was black as ink. Neither moon nor stars shone in the sky. A taxi-cab hurried along a quiet street, and the only sounds were the gentle rattling of the cab and the insistent tick of the meter as the miles rolled by.

The woman in the back seat of the taxi was huddled against the door as if she feared someone would strike her. Her brow was feverish and her hands were shaking. Her stomach felt ready to turn over any minute.

“Lady, you said I should take you to the Tiffany?”

“Yes,” the woman said. The cabby nodded shortly and revoted his attention to his driving.

The woman was Carla Macon. She was all tied up in knots — wanting to talk but having no one to talk with, wanting to cry but unable to do even that, wanting to have her cake and eat it too and discovering that such a course of action was utterly impossible.

After she had staggered blindly out of Danny’s room and down the staircase and onto the street, she walked around for several minutes looking for her car. It took her a while to remember that her MG was back on Nottingham. Then a cruising cab passed, timing its entrance perfectly, and she hailed the cab and huddled into the back seat.

For a moment she hadn’t known what address to give the driver. The thought of returning home didn’t appeal in the least. She needed someone to talk to, and no matter how understanding Ronald was this was nothing to discuss with him. And then she thought of Charles, and realized that he was the only one she could turn to.

Everything was wrong, horribly wrong. The thought of giving up Danny forever was almost more than she could bear. She couldn’t erase the memory of his tone when he told her never to come back again. Well, she had deserved it. She deserved everything he said to her. She should have told him before instead of waiting so long. Then maybe there would have been a chance; maybe she could have convinced him that marriage was senseless and unnecessary and that their relationship could continue indefinitely.

But now she had lost him. He wouldn’t take her now, not after the scene in his room. Not in a million years. She felt that she had lost something very precious, possibly the most precious thing she had ever possessed.

Would it have been worth it to marry him? She told herself no automatically, but doubts began to nag and gnaw at her mind. Could love substitute complete for money? Could she get used to living again without a full closet and a maid to clean the house?

Well, there was no sense worrying about that now. Not now, not after tonight. It would be something to think about when there was nothing else to do, but that was the only value the question would ever hold.

The cab sped on into the night. She went over the same questions and supplied the same answers, answers that left her as confused as the questions did. She was so deeply immersed in her questions and answers that the cabby had to tell her twice that she had reached the Tiffany. She got out of the cab and paid him, walking past the same impenetrable doorman and into the hotel.

Moments later she stood outside of Charles Butler’s room, hesitating before knocking. Would he be home? More important, would he have a girl with him? Knowing Charles, it was more than possible. He was the complete libertine, but at the same time he was a good and thoughtful man.

But if he had a girl in there, she would be about as welcome as a case of bubonic plague.

She gathered up her courage and knocked softly. A second later the door opened and Charles stood before her. He wore the same dressing-gown she had seen so often in the past, and he was visibly surprised to see her. Then he recovered and led her inside.

When she was seated across from Charles the words wouldn’t come. Charles seemed to sense her mood and waited silently for her to speak. Then, when she could talk at last, the words poured from her lips like water through a broken dike. She told him everything from the beginning to the end, told it in a frenzied rush with repetitions and stammering, told every bit of it until the whole bitter thing was said.