“But I’m in a mood for it!”
“But I’m not! My dear man, is there any hurry?”
“But we’ll put it off, the way we’ve been putting it off, if we wait till tomorrow.”
“Does it matter?”
“It certainly does! By God, I’m going to be a little stubborn myself, for once!”
“For once! Oh, Sam, as if you were ever anything else!”
“All right. Have it your way. If I’m always stubborn, you won’t be surprised—”
“And—please—don’t—shout!”
“I am not shouting! Fran, please quit playing the cat-and-mouse with me. Look here. It’s getting to be time for us to go home, and I do like Von Obersdorf, but he’s the kind of fellow that’s always so surrounded with people that if we stay here we’ll find ourselves mixed up with a whole lot of folks, and we won’t get away for weeks.”
“What of it? Isn’t that what we want? Isn’t it worth while really knowing one European city? Not that Kurt has anything to do with it. It’s really my cousins, the Biedners.”
“But it is Kurt that counts! He’s a mighty nice kind chap, but he isn’t satisfied unless everybody is having a party all the time, unless he sees you every day, and especially as he’s sort of attracted to you—”
“Sam, are you hinting that he and I—Oh, this is too much! Just because I did like one man besides your high and mighty and sacred self, I can see that you’re going to have the pleasure forever more of throwing it up to me, and of hinting the most outrageous things if I so much as have a polite talk with a man!”
“Fran, for God’s sake stop acting!”
“And for God’s sake stop cursing! Oh, I don’t know what’s gotten into you! A few years ago, even a few months ago, you would never have dreamed of talking to me the way you do. And every day you’re getting worse. You have no idea of the kind of language you use—”
“Stop acting! I know perfectly well that so far this Obersdorf fellow and you have been as innocent as babes. But I also know that you could get too fascinated by him—”
“Nonsense! All we have is the polite interest that any European gentleman and lady have in each other. It’s just exactly what I was saying tonight! The American male is totally unable to think of any woman as an agreeable teatime companion—if I hadn’t been too polite and wanted to protect you, I could have told them a lot more about American wives and husbands! You never think of any woman except as a potential mistress, or as too unattractive to interest you. Whereas Kurt—‘Innocent as babes!’ Why, of course we have been, and we’ll go on being so!”
“You sure will! And if only for the reason that I’m not going to have another Arnold Israel affair!”
She did not flare back as he expected. She stood fixed, looking at him reproachfully, tears coming. She was suddenly young and helpless and pitiful, and she spoke slowly:
“Oh, Sam, that wasn’t kind of you! I never remember things and throw them up at you, as you do with me. You never understood about Arnold. I didn’t defend myself when you were angry about him. But he was Romance—probably my last—and certainly my first! You were always so good; I’ve admired you and respected you; but you’ve always been so sound, so cautious, whereas with Arnold there was danger and excitement and madness and—Just for once in a whole lifetime, I let myself risk danger! And I found I had a talent for it, too! And then, for you, I gave it up; I obediently settled down to plodding around from hotel to hotel, wherever you wanted to go. Arnold kept writing me, and I scarcely ever answered him, and now, of course, I’ve lost him forever—for your sake! And then you insult me about him! Oh, Sam, that wasn’t generous!”
She cried a little, sitting twisted in a big chair, her cheek against the back of it.
Sam felt that there was something wrong, something self-dramatizing, about her version, but his sulkiness at being beguiled was less than his fondness of her. He stroked her hair; he said, more tenderly and intimately than for a long while:
“I was beastly. Forgive me. And besides, of course I know your friendship for Kurt is something quite different.” He heard an inner, testy voice: “It isn’t, and you know it, fool!” But he went on urgently, drawing a small gilt chair, ridiculous beneath his bulk, to her side, and holding her hand as he talked:
“Fran, I want to go home and get to work. I’m naturally an active sort of fellow. I can’t stand this loafing any more. And I don’t want to manufacture cars. Maybe I half agree with you in what you said about industrialized America, tonight. What I want to do—Oh, I suppose there’d be a lot of industrialization to it; certainly have to use modern methods in production and sales and advertising if we’re going to meet competition. But there would be a kind of individual achievement, I’d hope, and a lasting—This is something I’ve been figuring on for nine-ten months now, but I haven’t said anything about it because I wanted to be sure. And for once, it would be something you could take part in—”
She sat up with a bounce, tears dried, and demanded, “Oh, say it! Don’t make a speech! Forgive me, darling, for being rude, but you do take such a time—”
“Well, I want to have this
