“I don’t know anybody that has a footman in knee breeches.”
“Yes you do. You’ve never happened to go to their houses.”
“Excuse me.”
“You know three or four men who have footmen in knee breeches.”
“I guess I don’t know them very well.”
“No, but you probably thought you did. That’s why you were wise not to live in Philadelphia after the War. I’m changing the subject deliberately.”
“I’m looking forward to this summer.”
“Are you changing the subject too?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Oh. You’re changing it back?”
“Yes.”
“To me and my revenge on Harry?”
“Yes.”
“I think we’ve exhausted that topic. It’s curious how we ever got on it. I don’t think I trust you, Locky, but I like you. Or maybe it’s the other way round. It is. I trust you, even though I can’t really say I like you.”
“That’s too bad, because I like you.”
“Yes, I know you do. You’re not in love with your wife, are you?”
“I don’t think I am, any more. We’ve been married a long time.”
“Happily?”
“Yes. Yes, I would say happily,”
“This is the time when you’d better be very careful. A clever young thing could twist you around her little finger.”
“I doubt it. I don’t like clever young things. In fact, I guess I don’t like cleverness in a woman at all. When I was a young man during the War I had my fill of clever young things. Some of the cleverest in the world, I guess. The women in the diplomatic corps in Washington. They were too clever for me. So I went home and married a Pennsylvania Dutch girl. Pretty. Intelligent. But not clever. A clever girl never would have fitted in with my—” He stopped abruptly on the verge of giving the first utterance to the Concern.
“With your what?”
“Oh, my life, the kind of life I preferred.”
“That isn’t what you were going to say.”
“Isn’t it? No, I guess it isn’t.”
“What were you going to say?”
He shook his head and smiled. “Not in a thousand years, Martha.”
“Touché.”
“Show me the rest of your house.”
“You can come and see it when I’m not here.”
“No, that wouldn’t be the same.”
“No.”
“Then let’s say, whenever you’re ready.”
“Are you that rich, Locky?”
“I think I am, but I’m not going to woo you with greenbacks. I couldn’t buy what I want from you.”
She looked at him quickly, slightly troubled. “I wonder how you meant that. It could be the greatest compliment I ever had in my life.”
“What other way could I mean it?”
“I’m grateful to you for it, but I wish I hadn’t heard it. I have other plans.”
“Forget the other plans.”
“No. I have to think.”
“Well, I’ll be at The Run after the first of July.”
She became his mistress during the first week of July. He took her for a spin in the naphtha launch, tied up the launch on the south shore of the dam where there were no boathouses but in full view of the boathouses on the north shore. They went into the woods, and when they were in deep enough he took her in his arms. She had not spoken during the ride across the dam, and she went with him into the woods as if in obedience to a command. She kissed him eagerly, pressing her hands at places on his shoulders and down his back, always bringing him close to her and turning her head from side to side while holding his lips with her kiss. She took off her skirt and made a rug of it on the ground and sat on it while he helped her with the rest of her underclothes. Then he stripped and there was no time for tenderness or discoveries or sensuality but only the demand of each to possess the other before the world came to an end. Nothing that one said was heard by the other, and not by intent but by the speed of urgency they reached quick, very nearly simultaneous climax.
Her dampened hair streaked down over her forehead and she kissed him many times while he was tired. Now they could hear voices, wafted from the opposite shore, some speeches quite distinctly. A rusty oar-lock in a passing rowboat very near their shore. The music puffing out of the carrousel in the casino at the eastern end of the dam. The bell on the large launch that was about to make its hourly tour of the dam. The air whistle on the electric railway car from Gibbsville echoing down the valley.
“I didn’t hear anything before,” she said.
“You’d better put your things on. You never can tell when there may be picnickers.”
“Why didn’t you think of that before?” she asked, not crossly.
“Why didn’t you hear anything before?”
“I’d like to go in for a swim, just the way I am. And you with me. I’d love to swim all the way down to the breast and back. And then maybe we could lie here together.”
“All right, let’s.”
“Don’t tease me. I just might. Oh, that was lovely, Abraham Lockwood. Think how far away we are from the other side of the dam.”
“A quarter of a mile.”
“No! No! Turn your back to the other side and you’d walk all the way around the world before you got to it.”
“All the way around the world, less a quarter of a mile.”
“Exactly. I’m glad our first time was in the woods like this. The Garden of Eden.”
“Speaking of the Garden of Eden, there are serpents over on this side. I don’t mean picnickers, either.”
“Why didn’t you think of that before?”
“I can only think of one thing at a time.”
“I wish there was more to see here. How many times are you going to be able to take me sightseeing?”
“Not many, I guess.”
“Shall we pick some berries to take back to your wife?”
“No. I’ll tell her we looked for some but saw a copperhead. Sometimes you do see a copperhead where there are huckleberries. Don’t ever walk through these woods without a stick.”
“I’m not afraid of snakes, I rather like them.”
“Yes, but they don’t know that, and don’t try to convince them.”
“Do you care what happens to me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what has happened to me?”
“What?”
“Everything. I love you.”
“I love you.”
“Yes, in your way you do.”
“Why is my way different from yours?”
“It’s man’s love. Mine is woman’s love, and no other man will ever have me again, as long as I live. I swear it. You will have to go with your wife, but I’ll never have to go with another man. You won’t mind going with your wife, but I could never bear to have another man. I’m surprised, too. I didn’t expect to feel this way. But I do. I began when we got in the launch. I didn’t want you to talk, and you didn’t. Anything you said might have been wrong, but you didn’t say anything. As though you knew how much I wanted you. Oh, I’m chattering so nervously because I’m still shaking inside. Next week I must go to Philadelphia, and you and I can spend the night in my room. Would that be nice?”
“Yes,” he said. “What were you smiling at that day, you wouldn’t tell me.”
“Oh. It’s embarrassing to tell you, but I can’t refuse you anything now, so I guess I’ll have to tell you. When Harry and I were first married he told me a lot of things. And he told me about you. That you were known as the Stud Horse. I’m sorry, but I’ve never been able to look at you without thinking of that. Until today. I don’t know why, but in the launch I never thought of it. If I had, I might have been afraid. And I wasn’t afraid, was I?”