She drank the glass off and then held it, looking at it, and David was sure that she was going to throw it in his face. Then she put it down and picked the garlic olive out of it and ate it very carefully and handed David the pit.
"Semi-precious stone," she said. "Put it in your pocket. I'll have another one if you'll make it.
"But drink this one slowly."
"Oh I'm quite all right now," Catherine said. "You probably won't notice the difference. I'm sure it happens to everybody."
"Do you feel better?"
"Much better really. You just lose something and it's gone that's all. All we lose was all that we had. But we get some more. There's no problem is there?"
"Are you hungry?"
"No. But I'm sure everything will be all right. You said it would didn't you?"
"Of course it will."
"I wish I could remember what it was we lost. But it doesn't matter does it? You said it didn't matter."
"No."
"Then let's be cheerful. It's just gone whatever it was."
"It must have been something we forgot," he said. "We'll find
it.
"I did something I know. But it's gone now.
"That's good."
"It wasn't anyone else's fault whatever it was."
"Don't talk about faults."
"I know what it was now," she smiled. "But I wasn't unfaithful. Really David. How could I be? I couldn't be. You know that. How could you say I was? Why did you say it?"
"You weren't"
"Of course I wasn't. I wish you hadn't said it though."
"I didn't say it, Devil."
"Somebody did. But I wasn't. I just did what I said I'd do. Where's Marita?"
"She's in her room I think."
"I'm glad I'm all right again. Once you took it back I was all right. I wish it was you had done it so I could take it back about you. We're us again aren't we? I didn't kill it."
She smiled again. "That's good. I'll go and get her. Do you mind? She was worried about me. Before you came back."
"She was?"
"I talked a lot," Catherine said. "I always talk too much. She's awfully nice, David, if you knew her. She was very good to me."
"The hell with her."
"No. You took all that back. Remember? I don't want to have all that again. Do you? It's too confusing. Truly."
"All right bring her. She'll be glad to see you're feeling good again."
"I know she will and you must make her feel good too."
"Sure. Does she feel badly?"
"Only when I did. When I knew I was unfaithful. I never was before you know. You go and bring her, David. Then she won't feel bad. No don't bother, I'll go."
Catherine went out the door and David watched her go. Her movements were less mechanical and her voice was better. When she came back she was smiling and her voice was almost natural.
"She's coming in just a minute," she said. "She's lovely, David. I'm so glad you brought her."
The girl came in and David said, "We were waiting for you." She looked at him and looked away. Then she looked back at him and held herself very straight and said, "I'm sorry to be late."
"You look very handsome," David said and it was quite true but she had the saddest eyes he had ever seen.
"Make her a drink please, David. I had two," Catherine said to the girl.
"I'm glad you feel better," the girl said.
"David made me feel good again," Catherine said. "I told him all about everything and how lovely it was and he understands perfectly. He really approves.
The girl looked at David and he saw the way her teeth bit her upper lip and what she said to him with her eyes. "It was dull in town. I missed the swimming," he said.
"You don't know what you missed," Catherine said. "You missed everything. It was what I wanted to do all my life and now I've done it and I loved it."
The girl was looking down at her glass.
"The most wonderful thing is that I feel so grown up now. But it's exhausting. Of course it's what I wanted and now I've done it and I know I'm just an apprentice but I won't always be."
"Apprentice allowance claimed," David said and took a chance then and said very cheerfully, "Don't you ever talk on any other subjects? Perversion's dull and old fashioned. I didn't know people like us even kept up on it.
"I suppose it's only really interesting the first time one does it," Catherine said.
"And then only to the person who does it and a bloody bore to everyone else," David said. "Do you agree, Heiress?"
"Do you call her Heiress?" Catherine asked. "That's a nice funny name."
"I can't very well call her Ma'am or Highness," David said. "Do you agree, Heiress? About perversion?"
"I always thought it was overrated and silly," she said. "It's only something girls do because they have nothing better."
"But one's first time at anything is interesting," Catherine said.
"Yes," David said. "But would you want to always talk about your first ride at Steeplechase Park or how you, yourself, person ally soloed alone all by yourself in a plane absolutely away from the earth and up in the sky?"
"I'm ashamed," Catherine said. "Look at me and see if I'm not ashamed."
David put his arm around her.
"Don't be ashamed," he said. "Just remember how you'd like to hear old Heiress here recall how she went up in that plane, just herself and the plane, and there was nothing between her and the earth, imagine the Earth, with a big E, but just her plane and they might have been killed and smashed to horrible bits both of them and she lose her money and her health and her sanity and her life with a capital L and her loved ones or me or you or Jesus, all with capital letters, if she "crashed"— put the word crashed in quotes."
"Did you ever solo, Heiress?"
"No," the girl said. "I don't have to now. But I would like another drink. I love you, David."
"Kiss her again the way you did before," Catherine said.
"Sometime," David said. "I'm making drinks."
"I'm so glad we're all friends again and everything is fine," Catherine said. She was very animated now and her voice was natural and almost relaxed.
"I forgot about the surprise that Heiress bought this morning. I'll go and get it."
When Catherine was gone, the girl took David's hand and held it very tight and then kissed it. They sat and looked at each other. She touched his hand with her fingers almost absent mindedly. She curled her fingers around his and then released them. "We don't need to talk," she said. "You don't want me to make a speech do you?"
"No. But we have to talk sometime."
'Would you like me to go away?"
"You'd be smarter to go away.
"Would you kiss me so I know that it is all right if I stay?" Catherine had come in now with the young waiter who carried a large tin of caviar in a bowl of ice on a tray with a plate of toast. "That was a wonderful kiss," she said. "Everyone saw it so there's no longer any fear of scandal or anything," Catherine said. "They're cutting up some egg whites and some onion.
It was very large firm gray caviar and Catherine dipped it onto the pieces of thin toast.
"Heiress bought you a case of B6llinger Brut 1915 and there is some iced. Don't you think we should drink a bottle with this?"
"Sure," said David. "Let's have it all through the meal."
"Isn't it lucky Heiress and I are rich so you'll never have anything to worry about? We'll take good care of him won't we Heiress?"
'We must try very hard," the girl said. "I'm trying to study his needs. This was all we could find for today."
Chapter Fourteen
HE HAD 5LEPT about two hours when the daylight woke him and he looked at Catherine sleeping easily and looking happy in her sleep. He left her looking beautiful and young and unspoiled and then went into the bathroom and showered and put on a pair of shorts and walked barefoot through the garden to the room where he worked. The sky was washed clean after the wind and it was the fresh early morning of a new day toward the end of
summer.
He started in again on the new and difficult story and worked attacking each thing that for years he had put off facing. He worked until nearly eleven o'clock and when he had finished for the day he shut up the room and went out and found the two girls playing chess at a table in the garden. They both looked fresh and young and as attractive as the wind-washed morning
sky.
"She's beating me again," Catherine said. "How are you, David?"
The girl smiled at him very shyly.
They are the two loveliest girls I've ever seen, David thought. Now what will this day bring. "How are you two?" he said.
"We're very well," the girl said. "Did you have good luck?"
"It's all uphill but it's going well," he said.
"You haven't had any breakfast."
"It's too late for breakfast," David said.
"Nonsense," Catherine said. "You're wife of the day, Heiress. Make him eat breakfast."
"Wouldn't you like coffee and some fruit, David?" the girl asked. "You ought to eat something."
"I'll have some black coffee," David said.
"I'll bring you something," the girl said and went off into the hotel.
David sat by Catherine at the table and she put the chessmen and the board on a chair. She mussed his hair and said, "Have you forgotten you have a silver head like mine?"
"Yes," he said.
"It's going to be lighter and lighter and I'll be fairer and fairer and darker in the body too."
"That will be wonderful."
"Yes and I'm all over everything."
The pretty dark girl was bringing a tray with a small bowl rounded with caviar, a half lemon, a spoon and two pieces of toast and the young waiter had a bucket with a bottle of the B6llinger and a tray with three glasses.
"This will be good for David," the girl said. "Then we can go swimming before lunch."
After the swimming and lying in the sun on the beach and a big long lunch with more of the Bdllinger, Catherine said, "I'm really tired and sleepy."
"You swam a long way," David said. "We'll make a siesta."
"I want to really sleep," Catherine said.
"Do you feel well, Catherine?" the girl asked.
"Yes. just deadly sleepy."
"We'll put you to bed," David said. "Do you have a ther mometer?" he asked the girl.
"I'm sure I haven't any fever," Catherine said. "I just want to sleep for a long time."
When she was in bed the girl brought in the thermometer and David took Catherine's temperature and her pulse. The temperature was normal and the pulse was one hundred and five.
"The pulse is a little high," he said. "But I don't know your normal pulse."
"I don't either but it's probably too fast."
"I don't think the pulse means much with the temperature normal," David said. "But if you have a fever I'll bring a doctor up from Cannes."
"I don't want a doctor," Catherine said. "I just want to sleep. Can I sleep now?"
"Yes, my beauty. You call if you want me.
They stood and watched her go to sleep and then went out very quietly and David walked along the stones and looked through the window. Catherine was sleeping quietly and her breathing was regular. He brought two chairs up and a table and they sat in the shade near Catherine's window and looked out through the pines to the blue sea. "What do you think?" David asked.
"I don't know. She was happy this morning. just as you saw her when you finished writing."
'What about now?"
"Maybe just a reaction from yesterday. She's a very natural girl, David, and this is natural."
"Yesterday was like loving someone when someone s died," he said. "It wasn't right." He stood up and walked to the window
and looked in. Catherine was sleeping in the same position and breathing lightly. "She's sleeping well," he told the girl. "Wouldn't you like to take a nap?"
"I think so."
"I'm going down to my room where I work," he said. "There's a door to yours that bolts on each side." He walked down along the stones and unlocked the door of his room and then unbolted the door between the two rooms. He stood and waited and then heard the bolt turn on the other side of the door and then the door opened. They sat side by side on the bed and he put his arm around her. "Kiss me," David said.
"I love to kiss you," she said. "I love it so very much. But I can't do the other."
"No?"
"No, I can't."
Then she said, "Isn't there anything I can do for you now? I'm so ashamed about the other but you know how it could. make trouble."
"Just lie here by me."
"I'd love that."
"Do what you like."
"I will," she said. "You too please. Do what we can.
Catherine slept all through the afternoon and early evening. David and the girl were sitting at the bar having a drink together and the girl said, "They never did bring the mirror."
"Did you ask old man Aurol about it?"
"Yes. He was pleased."
"I'd better pay him corkage on that Bollinger or something."
"I gave him four bottles and two very good bottles of fine. He's taken care of. It was Madame I was afraid of about trouble."
