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of teasing him pressed the button that brought it down. Then on what
was more than an impulse she got into it and sent it up to what she
guessed was his floor.
"Anson," she called, laughing a little.
"Just a minute," he answered from his bedroom ... then after a
brief delay: "Now you can come in."
He had changed and was buttoning his vest.
"This is my room," he said lightly. "How do you like it?"
She caught sight of Paula's picture on the wall and stared at it in
fascination, just as Paula had stared at the pictures of Anson's childish
sweethearts five years before. She knew something about Paula -
sometimes she tortured herself with fragments of the story.
Suddenly she came close to Anson, raising her arms. They
embraced. Outside the area window a soft artificial twilight already
hovered, though the sun was still bright on a back roof across the
way. In half an hour the room would be quite dark. The uncalculated
opportunity overwhelmed them, made them both breathless, and they
clung more closely. It was imminent, inevitable. Still holding one
another, they raised their heads – their eyes fell together upon Paula's
picture, staring down at them from the wall.
Suddenly Anson dropped his arms, and sitting down at his desk
tried the drawer with a bunch of keys.
"Like a drink?" he asked in a gruff voice.
"No, Anson."
He poured himself half a tumbler of whiskey, swallowed it, and
then opened the door into the hall.
"Come on," he said.
Dolly hesitated.
"Anson - I'm going to the country with you tonight, after all.
You understand that, don't you?"
"Of course," he answered brusquely.
In Dolly's car they rode on to Long Island, closer in their
emotions than they had ever been before. They knew what would
happen – not with Paula's face to remind them that something was
lacking, but when they were alone in the still, hot Long Island night
they did not care.
The estate in Port Washington where they were to spend the
week-end belonged to a cousin of Anson's who had married a
Montana copper operator. An interminable drive began at the lodge