"No," said Craig. "You have to find that out for yourself." He stood up. "You've really been awfully helpful—"
"Not at all," said Simmons. "I hope you catch them."
"Me, too," said Jane. "But you're not going, are you?"
She glowered at Simmons, who suddenly realized that Craig couldn't possibly leave. He had to go to town for a couple of days to see an editor, and Craig must and should stay on to entertain his daughter. He kissed her, said goodbye to Craig, and left. They sat and watched the palomino stud move like mercury across the meadow. Behind him two mares trotted, submissive. The girl looked at Craig. She realized that she had more than her fear of him to combat. With it there came a paralyzing shyness, and this also was new.
"I hope you and Charlie haven't quarreled for good," she said. "I rather like Charlie."
"I should hope so," said Craig, and she blushed, a sullen, unattractive red. She felt about fifteen years old.
"Daddy's sure I'm going to marry him," she said. "I'm not as sure as he is. Did you hurt him?"
"Not much," said Craig. "How's the bull?"
She giggled then, and felt more girlish than ever.
"He's still got a black eye," she said, and tried desperately to be the hostess once more.
"What would you like to do?" she asked.
"What about the others?" asked Craig.
"They never want to do anything after one of Daddy's parties."
"I've got a bull as well," said Craig. "Come and have a look."
They walked through the rose garden and into the house. The butler appeared at once, like a djinn from an uncorked bottle.
"Thank you, Zelko," said Jane. "We won't need you."
He bowed, and left, and Craig turned to her. "Zelko?" he asked.
"That's his first name really," said Jane. "His second name's Gabrilovic or something. Far too complicated, Daddy says. So he's Zelko."
"Your father seems very fond of him."
"That boring old war," said Jane. "His father and Daddy saved each others' lives all the time in Yugoslavia. Let's look at your bull."
He showed her the Miura, and she was enchanted. "You'd better make yourself dishy," Loomis had said, and the car was all it needed. She adored everything about it, from the fighting bull emblem to the comfort of the two vast seats that nearly filled the car. Craig pressed the starter and thought: What quality did I value most when I was twenty? And the answer was rebellion, obviously. At twenty one could not, would not conform. The engine fired, roared once, then relapsed to its whisper of easy power. Craig decided to break some laws.
Jane had been in E-types, Maseratis, Ferraris, had driven and been driven at speed, but this time the car, like the man, was new to her, and powerful and frightening. She felt the threat of it as he drove her back toward London, and the speedometer flicked to seventy, and the engine purred, half-asleep. At seventy the car made no effort at all; it was waiting for the signal that would send it forward with a speed that makes the loping look like stillness. And so it happened. Craig found the road he was seeking, when two lanes swelled at last to four, and his right foot moved smoothly, inexorably down. What followed was something she had never known before—a ride in a high-performance car handled by a master. The road was quiet, and the outside lane for the most part empty, so that the car's speed soared from fifty to seventy to a hundred and twenty, and the engine still whispered its song, contemptuous that the road would allow no more as the little saloons flicked by on the inside lane. Once she heard the sound of a police car and looked back, but the car was a white blur in the distance that dwindled into a dot.
"Don't worry," said Craig. "They were too far away to get the number."
"I'm glad," Jane said. "I hate policemen."
They came to a roundabout and Craig felt his way to the byroads that would take him back to Simmons's house. He was delighted with the Lamborghini. The fastest way to a girl's heart...
"Don't let's go home for lunch," said Jane.
So he drove again into the winding lanes, and she rejoiced that she had worn a yellow dress that could at least survive against the Lamborghini's triumphant scarlet. He found a pub that would do, low-shingled, deep-walled, authentic, with polished horse-brasses in the bar and a primly chintzed dining room. He bought her a gin and tonic, and bitter for himself. The barman looked at his workshirt and jeans, and visibly doubted his ability to pay. His amused contempt brushed off Craig like a feather off armor plating, and he offered her a cigarette, then took one himself.
"I like to get away sometimes like this," she said. "You've no idea how dull it can be, just sitting around in a period gem."
"I bet," said Craig, and stared at the barman, who was far too near, until the barman flushed, moved away, and began to polish an already sparkling glass.
"What do you do all day?" asked Craig.
"Well—entertaining for Daddy mostly. When he's at home. Otherwise it's just Charlie or something."
"Don't you go to London?"
"Sometimes," she said. "Daddy isn't awfully keen on it."
"He let you go on that walking tour."
"It was his idea," she said. "He thought I needed the exercise." She paused. "He does let me off the hook sometimes, you know. I'm not a prisoner exactly."
"Go where?"
She thought: He's so hard he doesn't even recognize his own hardness. It's just a fact, like the way his eyes tell you nothing. Even now. And yet he must be interested, or he wouldn't ask.
"Oh Ischia and Paris and Cannes and Mykonos," she said. "You know. The places one goes to. Holidays and all that. And he takes me away on business sometimes. I've been to West Berlin and Rabat—and Yugoslavia. We're going to Morocco again next year. Then to the States, if I'm a good girl."
"What does that mean?"
"Being true to Charlie," said Jane.
"Is it worth it?"
"I've never tried it," she said, "so I don't know. And I don't want to start now."
He looked down at her, and for a moment she could see emotion in his eyes, and in the way his mouth relaxed, but it vanished too quickly for her to read it, which was as well. Craig had begun to pity her, but he stopped himself well in time.
"Would you like to eat?" he asked, and she nodded, and moved toward the dining room. Craig looked toward the glass in the barman's hand.
"You go on like that and you'll break it," said
Craig. "You're too rough."
The barman polished the glass more viciously than ever. Its stem snapped.
"I told you," said Craig.
At the dining-room door a headwaiter met them, looked back at his impeccably dressed clientele, then at the two in the doorway once more. The girl was fine, almost too good, he thought. But the man . . . Craig read the look. "It's all right," he said. "I'm an eccentric millionaire."
"Indeed, sir?" said the headwaiter.
"Indeed," said Craig. "That's my car outside."
The headwaiter's eyes flicked once to the win-dow,"and the Lamborghini it framed, and he led them to a table, a good one, secure from eavesdroppers and with a view of the garden. His hand flicked away a "Reserved" sign as if it were an abomination and menus appeared in front of them like a trick with giant cards.
"You'll have to order all the expensive things now," said Jane, then blushed.
Craig laughed. "It really is my car," he said.
She ordered vegetable soup, roast beef and apple tart, was nervous about claret and settled for Burgundy.
"They're really very good here," she said, "and Daddy only likes French food, except when he's playing cowboys."
"Do you like playing cowboys, too?" he asked.
"Oh yes," she said viciously. "I like everything that Daddy does."
"Do you really?"
"I have to," she said. "If I didn't, he might not leave me his money when he dies. He won't die for ages, either."