"What do you think a promise from George Welterman is worth?" asked Mark. "The kind of man who can attack a woman when there's nothing she can do to defend her honour... you believe a man like that?"
"I don't know. I really don't. I don't actually want to talk about it anymore."
Mark said, "You really believe that I was trying to seduce you so that you would sell me the Arcadia? You really believe that?"
Catriona looked away. She suddenly felt embarrassed. "It crossed my mind, of course it did."
"Well, why don't you ask me? Straight and direct?"
She looked quickly and directly into those clear and overserious eyes of his. "Well?' she asked. "Did you?"
"You want me to tell you a romantic lie, or the naked truth?"
"I've always preferred the naked truth."
"Well, if that's what you want... I first approached you because I thought you were stunningly pretty, and because I wanted to get to know you."
"And you don't want the Arcadia at all?'
"Of course I want the Arcadia. I want both of you. You, personally, and the ship. It's only my eagerness, yes, and maybe my clumsiness, too, that allowed the two to get themselves mixed up."
"You really think—" began Catriona.
Mark shushed her. "Dr. Fields said you had to rest. Rest, he said, okay?"
"You don't have any heart at all, do you?" Catriona asked him. She knew she shouldn't have invited him in, especially now, when she was feeling so touchy. Why couldn't he say the right thing, just once, whether it was the truth or not? All he seemed to do was upset her. He was worse than George Welterman; worse because he was just as hypocritical, and eight times as good-looking, and because George Welterman had raped her and Mark Beeney hadn't.
Alice had already laid down her crochet and was looking at Mark, Sizing him up, in case any forcible chaperone work was called for. In her time, Alice had protected dozens of ladies and less-than-ladies from dozens of ardent gentlemen, many of whom had been far larger and far more persistent than Mark, and a great deal drunker. It was partly a question of persuading them that they would be doing the honourable thing by saying goodnight and leaving, and partly a question of jabbing them very hard in the arse with her crochet hook.
But Mark, leaning forward, took both of Catriona's hands between his and said quietly, "Perhaps it's just infatuation. I hope it isn't, because it feels so good that I want it to last. You have to understand that what I said yesterday about loving you... I meant it. But it doesn't change things, in the sense that I can allow myself to give up trying to buy the Arcadia. It can't, and I'd be screwy if I pretended it could. I want you, and I want your ship. But I don't intend to exploit either need in order to satisfy the other. If you can't love me the way I love you, but you want to sell me the Arcadia... well, I suppose I'll have the consolation prize, at least. If you love me, and you don't want to sell me the Arcadia... I'll have to accept that, too, although a great deal more gladly."
'And if I don't love you, and I don't want to sell you the Arcadia, either?' asked Catriona in a soft whisper.
Mark looked down at the embroidered counterpane, still clasping her hand between his. His diamond-studded Jaeger-le-Coultre wristwatch was ticking away the seconds to one-thirty in the morning.
"I'm not sure," he said. "Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I believe in whirlwind romances, sure. But is this a romance? I mean, in the ordinary sense? I don't know. I can't explain how I feel. I'm used to talking in terms of preferred stock and tonnage and bills of lading. How can you use that kind of language to say that you've met someone you shouldn't really get involved with, for all sorts of the very best reasons, and yet you only have to look at her and you can't resist her?"
He raised his eyes. The glow from the futuristic Marianne Brandt bedside lamps outlined his tanned and angular cheekbones by lighting up the tiny blond hairs on them. Catriona felt like reaching up and touching them, but Mark still held her hands fast together, as if she were a prisoner of his passionate indecision—a hostage to the feelings which disturbed him so deeply.
"'I felt so responsible for what happened to you today," he said. "I should have stepped on George Welterman's hands the first minute he tried to climb on board."
"It doesn't alter the way you feel about me?"
"Do you think it should?"
"You understand what he did to me, don't you?" asked Catriona. She was trying to keep her voice level but it wasn't easy.
Mark released her hands at last. She wasn't sure what the significance of this sudden letting-go might be; but he said, in a sentence that was made up of small chopped-up phrases, "I've known George for years, and I should have realised right from the start what he was trying to do."
Catriona said, "You're screwy."
He smiled. "Of course I'm screwy. I'm screwy about you."
"You're screwy to be screwy about me."
"Well, maybe. But I can't help it."
"Oh, nerts."
"You don't believe me? You don't believe what I'd do for you?"
"I don't believe that anyone can fall in love so quickly. Nobody except me."
Mark grinned, a wide grin that was full of sparkling white teeth. "You love me too? You and your ship, or just you?"
"Just me. You can leave my ship out of this."
"But you don't mind any more that I want the Arcadia?
Catriona shook her head. Mark was making her feel quite intoxicated now, with all this talk of love. She suddenly thought, it's absurd, but I do love him. I loved him the very first moment I looked at him. And now he loves me, too. And there's nothing to worry about but love, love, love.
"Wait," said Mark, unexpectedly serious. 'You do realise that this could be nothing more than one of those infamous shipboard romances? You know what they say in those Keys advertisements about taking a girl down to the rail, and showing her the wake of the ship glistening in the moonlight, as if that was all you were going to show her?"
Catriona frowned. "You're right. We should probably call the whole thing off before it gets too hot. Besides, it's late. Goodnight, Mr. Beeney. So nice of you to enquire after my health."
Alice suddenly put in, "Excuse me just a moment, Miss Keys. I think I forgot to switch off the gramophone," and she put down her crochet and bustled into the sitting room. Closing the door behind her, of course.
"Dear Alice," said Catriona. "She's strict, but she's understanding."
In the lamplight, with her bobbed hair shining, she looked to Mark like somebody magicaclass="underline" half human and half enchanted. It was probably nothing more than her dark, slightly slanted eyes, or the curve of her forehead. How can anybody describe the subtle shades and elusive lines that make one girl beautiful? There were similarities in Catriona's face to Marcia's, and to all of the girls that Mark had found especially attractive. But to him, Catriona had everything that made a girl irresistible, and even if she had been George Welterman's sister, he would have fallen in love with her right from the start.
He bent his head towards her, his lips parted, and for a moment they looked at each other from only three inches apart. The hovering anticipation of a kiss, thought Catriona, is equal to at least half the total pleasure of the whole experience. Gradually, as if she were falling asleep, she closed her eyes, and then Mark touched her lips with his, delicately at first, as softly as if he were trying to bite snow; and then more insistently, tasting the sweet greasiness of her lipstick again and again. She uttered something, but neither of them knew what it was. It was simply a sound of love.