"I lied to you, Bonny," he said without preamble.
She was stroking her hair in readiness for bed, her back was to him. Literally now, as it had been figuratively for days on end.
"There is more money. That was not the end of it."
She set down her brush smartly, turned to stare.
"Then why did you tell me that? What did you do it for ?"
"I thought perhaps we might run through it too quickly. I thought perhaps we should put it by for a little while, for some later day."
Greed must have dulled her perceptions. He made a poor liar, at best. And now, because of the stake involved, he was at his worst. Yet she wanted to believe him, and so she wholeheartedly did. Instantly she had accepted for fact his faltering figment; that could be told by the swiftness with which she entered into argument over it. And you do not argue over something that is not a fact, you disregard it; you argue only over something that is.
"Later?" she said heatedly. "How much later? Will we be any younger when it comes, that precious day? Will a dress look as good on me then as it does now? Will my skin be as smooth, will your step be as firm ?"
She picked up her brush again, but not for use; to fling it down in emphasis.
"No, I've never lived that way and I won't submit to it now! 'A rainy day.' I've heard that old fusty saying. I'll give you another, a truer one! 'Tomorrow never comes.' Let it rain tomorrow! Let it soak and drench me! If I'm dry and warm tonight, that's all I care about. Tomorrow's rain may never find me. I may be dead tomorrow, and so may you. And you can't spend money in a grave. I'll take on the bargain. I'll ask no odds. Bury me tomorrow, and welcome. In potter's field, if you want. Without even a shroud to cover me. If I can only have Tonight."
She was breathing fast with the heat and fury of her philosophy. The protest of the disinherited; the panic of the pagan, with no promise of ultramundane reward.
"How much is it?" she asked avidly. "How much, about?"
He wanted her happy. He couldn't give her heaven, so he gave her the only heaven she believed in, understood. "A great deal," he said. "A great deal."
"About?"
"A lot," was all he could keep saying. "A lot."
She had risen, ecstatic, was coming closer to him step by step. Each step a caress. Each step the promise of another caress still to come, beyond the last. She clasped hands over her bosom, as if to hold in the joy swelling it. "Oh, never mind, no need to tell me exactly. I never did like figures. A lot, that's all that matters. A bunch. A load. Where? Here, with us?"
"In New Orleans," he mumbled evasively. "But where I can put my hands on it easily." Anything to hold her. She wanted Tonight. Well, he wanted Tonight too.
She spun, suddenly, in a solo waltz step, as though unseen violins had struck a single chord. Then flung herself half onto the bed and into his waiting arms.
One again; love again. Whisperings, protestations, promises and vows: never another cold word, never another black silence, never another hurt. I forgive you, I adore you, I cannot live without you. "A new you, a new me."
Suddenly she alerted her head for a moment, almost as if an afterthought had assailed her. "Oh, I'm sorry," he heard her breathe, and whether it was to him or to herself, he could not even tell, it was so inward and subdued.
"It's over, it's forgotten," he murmured, "we've agreed on that."
Her head dropped back again, solaced.
But the belatedness of the qualm, coming as it did after all the pardons had been asked and given, and not in their midst, made him think her compunction might have been for something else, and not their state of alienation itself, now happily ended. Some act he'd had no inkling of at the time, now rashly completed beyond recall.
She kept asking when he was going, and when he was going, with increasing frequency and increasing insistence, until at last he was face to face with the retraction he'd dreaded so; there was nothing left for him but to tell her. So tell her he did.
"I'm not."
"But--but how else can you obtain it?"
"There isn't any there to obtain. Not a penny. It's all gone long since, all been used. The money from the sale of the St. Louis Street house, that Jardine took care of for me; my share of the business. There's nothing more coming to me." He buried hands in pockets, drew a deep breath, looked down. "Very well, I lied. Don't ask me why; you should know. To see you smile at me a little longer, perhaps." And he murmured, half-inside his throat, "It was cheap at that price."
She said, still speaking quietly, "So you hoodwinked me."
She put aside her hand mirror. She stood. She moved about, with no settled destination. She clasped her own sides, in double embrace.
The storm brewed slowly, but it brewed suiphurous strong. She paced back and forth, her chest rising and falling with quickened breath, but not a word coming from her at first.
She seized her cut-glass flask of toilet water at last, and raising arm up overhead to full height, crashed it down upon the dresser top.
"So that's what you think of me. A good joke, wasn't it? A clever trick. Tell her you have money, tell her you haven't. The fool will believe anything you say. One minute yes, the next minute no." The talcum jar came down next, shattered into crystal shrapnel, some of which jumped almost to his feet, across the room. Then the hand mirror. "It isn't enough to lie to me once, you have to lie to me twice over!"
"The first time was the truth; the only lie was when I said I did have."
"You got what you wanted, though, didn't you? That was all you cared about, that was all that mattered to you!"
"Haven't you got any modesty at all? Isn't there anything you leave unsaid ?"
"You'd better make it do, I warn you! It'll be a long long time--"
"You've got a filthy mouth for such a beautiful face," he let her know sternly. "A slut's tongue in a saint's face."
She threw a scent bottle, this time directly at him. He didn't swerve; it struck the wall just past his shoulder. A piece of glass nicked his cheek, and drops of sweet jasmine spattered his shoulder. She was not play-acting in some lovers' quarrel; her face was maniacal with hate. She was beside herself. If there had been anything sharp at hand to use for weapon--
"You--" She called him a name that he'd thought only men knew. "I'm not good enough for you, am I? I'm beneath you. I'm just trash and you're a fine gentleman. Well, who told you to come after me? Who wants you?"
He took a handkerchief to the tiny spot of blood on his cheek. He held his peace, stood there steadfast against the sewage torrents of her denunciation.
"What good are you to me? You're no good to me at all. You and your romantic love. Faugh!" She wiped her hand insultingly across her mouth, as though he had just kissed her.
"No, I suppose I'm not," he said, eyes hard now, face bitter. "The wind has changed now. Now that I have nothing left. Now that you've had everything out of me that's to be had. You greedy little leech. Are you sure you haven't overlooked anything?" He was trembling now with emotion. His hands sought into his pockets, turning their linings out with the violence of their seeking. "Here." He dragged some coins out, flung them full at her face. "Here's something you missed. And here, have this too." He ripped the jeweled stickpin from his tie, cast that at her. "And that's all there is. An insurance policy among my papers somewhere, and maybe you'd like me to cut my own throat to profit you--but unfortunately it's not in force."
She was pulling things out of the drawers now, dropping more than she secured.
"I've left you once already, and I'll leave you again. And this time for good, this time goodbye. I don't ever want to see the sight of you again."