"I’ll look at it tomorrow," David said.
"I’d like to see it, too."
David looked at Rosa. He smiled.
It was the first time she'd ever expressed any interest in a picture.
"Come down to the studio at ten o'clock," he said. "We'll both look at it."
"If I didn't have an important meeting," Irving said, "I'd be down there myself."
David tied the sash of his pajamas and sat down in the chair near the window, looking out at the ocean.
He could hear the water running in the bathroom basin and the faint sound of Rosa's voice, humming as she rinsed her face.
He sighed.
At least, she could be happy in her work. A doctor didn't have to survive a war of nerves in order to practice medicine. The door clicked open behind him and he turned around.
She looked at him, a musing expression on her face, as she stood in the doorway.
"You had something to tell me?" He smiled. "Go ahead."
"No, David," she replied, her eyes warm. "It's a wife's duty to listen when her lord and master speaks."
"I don't feel much like a lord and master."
"Is anything wrong, David?"
"I don't know," he said and began to tell her the story, beginning with his meeting with Sheffield the night she had called.
She walked over to him and put her arms around his head, drawing him to her bosom.
"Poor David," she whispered sympathetically. "So many problems."
He turned his face up to her.
"I’ll have to make a decision soon," he said.
"What do you think I ought to do?"
She looked down at him, her gray eyes glowing. She felt strong and capable, as if her roots were deep into the earth. "Whatever decision you make, David," she said, "I feel sure will be the right one for us."
"For us?"
She smiled slowly. This new-found strength, too, was what it meant to be a woman.
Her voice was low and happy.
"We're going to have a baby," she said.
16.
The bright sunlight hurt their eyes after the dark of the screening room.
They walked along silently toward David's office, in one of the executive cottages.
"What are you thinking, David?" she asked quietly. "That test make you sorry you're married?"
He looked at her and laughed.
He opened the door to his cottage and they went past his secretary into his private office.
David walked around behind his desk and sat down.
She seated herself in a leather chair in front of his desk.
The thoughtful expression was still on his face.
She took out a cigarette and lit it.
"What did you think of the test?" he asked.
She smiled. "Now I understand why she's driving all the men crazy," she answered. "The way that sheet clung to her when she came out of the water was the most suggestive thing I ever saw."
"Forget that scene.
If it weren't in the test, what would you think of her?"
She dragged on the cigarette and the smile left her face. "I thought she was wonderful.
She almost tore my heart out in that scene where all you saw was Jesus' feet walking, the bottom of the Cross dragging along as she crawled in the dirt after Him, trying to kiss His feet. I found myself crying with her." She was silent for a moment. "Were those real tears or make-up?"
David stared at her. "They were real tears," he said. "They don't use make-up tears in tests."
He felt his excitement begin to hammer inside him.
In her own way, Rosa had given him the answer.
He hadn't felt like this since he'd first seen Rina Marlowe on the screen. They'd all been too blinded by the baptismal scene to see it.
He pulled a buck slip from the holder on his desk and began to write on it.
Rosa watched him for a moment, then walked around the desk and looked down curiously over his shoulder. He had already finished his scribbling and was reaching for the telephone.
Jonas-
I think it's about time we got back into the picture business.