Grace Bunyon on the other hand had almost completely fallen in love with Duncan Wilkes, although she was concerned that by the end of the voyage, he would be far too fat to be good for anything, let alone romance. But she bravely mopped his sweating forehead for him, and quoted Shakespeare to give him encouragement. What she didn't know was that Duncan Wilkes, within the orderly caverns of his mind, had decided that his heart was probably not going to be capable of withstanding this constant feasting, and that by the time the Arcadia docked in New York, he would be dead.
The prospect did not alarm him. Throughout his life, as he had built up his small newspaper empire, he had always learned to abide by the decision that he had taken, whether they were good decisions or bad ones. He had decided, wisely or foolishly, to compete with Joe Kretchmer in an eating contest, and he was prepared to die rather than to give in. He believed quite firmly in a Victorian Heaven, in which gentle angels in long nightgowns flew about amongst the clouds with feathered wings, and in which the righteous and the persevering were allowed to sit at God's table, irradiated by the sort of warm tangerine-coloured light you see on summer evenings in the Midwest.
He would miss the crabmeat crepes Louise at the Chicago Pump Room; and he would miss his St Bernard named Flong (after the papier-mache moulds in which hot metal was poured to make plates for his newspapers' rotary presses). But, on the whole, he was content to go out eating.
Maurice Peace, with his uncanny nose for anything that smelled like a loser, watched Duncan Wilkes and noted his silent internal resignation with relish. He had seen too much death in the name of a good bet to feel sentimental about it.
Mark Beeney, who had ordered nothing more for breakfast than a pink grapefruit, three pieces of toast, and a bottle of Mme Bollinger's finest champagne, glanced across at the Wilkes-Kretchmer table and grinned. "How those two manage it, I just don't know. I doubt if they'll ever want to eat again."
Catriona said, "Mr Deacon says it's good for publicity. Particularly since Mr. Wilkes owns his own newspapers."
The steward came around, and Catriona ordered eggs Benedict and coffee.
"You're feeling better?" asked Mark.
"I think so. Dr. Fields gave me some sleeping pills, and I think that I'm over it now. But I don't know how he's got the nerve just to seat there as if nothing had happened," she said, nodding towards George Welterman.
"That's George Welterman's style. You'll just have to grin and bear it. He's the original thick-skinned gorilla."
"Did you know he had a burn across his chest?" said Catriona. 'It's terrible. Really deep, livid scars. He must have done it himself. It spells out the name Myrtle."
"He's screwy," said Mark. It was obvious that he didn't really want to talk about George Welterman; and that, for Catriona, was a quietly reassuring sign of his affection for her. A man who really loves you doesn't want to discuss any of the other men you've known. He has an interest in trying to pretend that he's the first. The first to buy you jewels, the first to give you your taste for Bollinger champagne. The first to love you so that the stars seem to burst above your bed.
Catriona laid her hand on the pink tablecloth, among the white roses, and Mark laid his darkly tanned hand on top of hers.
"I feel as if I don't have anything to give you," she said, in a quiet voice. "I feel as if George Welterman took it all away from me."
"That's nonsense," said Mark. "I can understand it, but it's nonsense."
"You really think so?" asked Catriona. The steward arrived with a silver coffeepot and poured her a cup of coffee.
Mark leaned forward and spoke to Catriona confidentially. "George Welterman didn't take anything from you. All he did was to destroy his own dignity."
Catriona would have loved to be able to believe him. But the shock of being attacked by George Welterman had abated, only to leave her with a terrible sensation of emptiness. She felt warm towards Mark. She hoped that she could trust him. But somehow the warmth had very little oxygen to sustain it, within that emptiness; and the trust had nothing to lean on. She seemed to have been betrayed by so many more people than George Welterman alone. She seemed to have been betrayed by everyone who allowed a man to do what he wanted with a girl, and then advised her that to complain about it would be more trouble than it was worth. Life and Business have to go on, Catriona. Don't rock the boat for the sake of an inconsequential rape. And, anyway, how can you ever prove that it was a rape? The way girls dress these days... the way they behave in Scott Fitzgerald novels ... why, you were lucky to be raped by somebody who was white and middle-aged and respectable. You were lucky it wasn't somebody from steerage!
Mark said, "I'm opening my mouth and putting my foot in it, aren't I?"
Catriona nodded. Quite suddenly she was near to tears.
"I'm sorry," he said, withdrawing his hand. "I shouldn't have been so insensitive. I guess I deserve a kick in the head."
"You're not insensitive," said Catriona. 'It's just that—well, what happened—it's going to take me a little while to get over it."
"I know," said Mark. "I feel like a failure for not killing him."
"You would have killed him?" asked Catriona.
"I felt like it. I even opened my desk drawer and took out my gun and loaded it. But killing George Welterman wouldn't have solved any problems. It would only make them worse. The genius of men him George is that they make themselves so obnoxious when they're alive that you know damn well they're going to be absolutely intolerable when they're dead."
"I suppose you're right," said Catriona. "But thank you for thinking of it. He's such a toad."
Mark said, "Don't thank me too much. My motives were pretty selfish, too. In fact very selfish. I didn't particularly want to be sent to prison, not when I had the chance of spending more time with you."
"You're banana-oiling again."
"Not a bit of it." Mark smiled. "In fact, there was something I wanted to ask you. Something serious."
"How serious?" asked Catriona. The steward had just brought her eggs, and set them in front of her. She looked up at Mark and in that moment, when she saw his face, she knew what he was going to ask her. God, she thought, he's desperately handsome. In that white flannel blazer, with that curly hair of his, he looks absolutely the bee's knees. And I know that I'm pretty, and I know what he's going to ask me, but please God don't let him ask me. It's too soon after George; and it's too soon after Nigel; and it's too soon for me. I've only just begun to discover that what I thought was sophistication was only confidence, the sheer confidence of being twenty-one; and I only just discovered that there's a whole complicated unknown world going on out there, and that too many people are expecting me to understand what it's all about, when I don't.
Mark said, "You're not ready for this, are you?"
"For what?" she asked him, breathlessly.
"I can see it in your face. I'm sorry. I think I've made a fool of myself."
"Tell me," she insisted.
He shook his head. "Forget I said anything. Let's just talk about business."
"I don't want to talk about business. I want to know what you were going to say."
"I was going to say—" began Mark, but then he shook his head again, and made a production out of spreading ids toast with Oxford marmalade.
"If you don't tell me, I shall do something drastic," said Catriona. "Like scream."