"I oughta kill you. But you ain't worth goin' to the gas chamber for."
He turned his back contemptuously and walked away.
Dan waited until the sound of the high-heeled boots faded away. Then he put his face down on his hands against the cold concrete.
"It was only a joke," he cried drunkenly. "It was only a joke."
Jonas followed Jennie into the darkened house.
"You're tired," he said gently, looking down at her white face. "It's been a big night. Go on up to bed.
I'll see you tomorrow."
"No," she said flatly. She knew what she had to do.
She turned and walked into the living room, switching on the light.
He followed her curiously.
She turned, slipping the ring from her finger, and held it out to him.
He looked at it, then at her.
"Why?" he asked. "Is it because of anything I did tonight?"
She shook her head.
"No," she said quickly.
"It has nothing to do with you at all.
Just take the ring, please."
"I'm entitled to know why, Jennie."
"I don't love you," she said. "Is that reason enough?"
"Not now it isn't."
"Then I have a better reason," she said tightly. "Before I made that screen test, I was the highest-priced whore in Hollywood."
He stared at her for a moment.
"I don't believe you," he said slowly. "You couldn't have fooled me."
"You're a fool," she said sharply. "If you don't believe me, ask Bonner or any of the other four men at the table who laid me.
Or any of a dozen other men I saw in the restaurant tonight."
"I still don't believe you," he said in a low voice.
She laughed.
"Then ask Bonner why Pierce gave me that present.
There wasn't any mix-up, he meant the razors for me.
The story was all over Hollywood, the morning after Bonner left here.
How I shaved all the hair off his body, then blew him in a bathtub filled with champagne." He began to look sick. "And why do you think I asked you to let me do Aphrodite?" she continued.
"Not because I thought it was any good.
It was to pay Pierce off for this." She walked quickly to the desk and took out two small reels of film.
She spun one out at him, the film unwinding from the reel like a roll of confetti. "My first starring role," she said sarcastically. "A pornographic picture." She took a cigarette from the box on the desk and lit it. She turned back to him. Her voice was quieter now.
"Or maybe you're the kind of man who enjoys being married to that kind of woman, so that every time you meet another man, you can wonder. Did he or didn't he?
When, where and how?"
He took a step toward her.
"That's over now. It doesn't matter."
"It doesn't?
Just because I was a fool for a moment, you don't have to be.
How much of tonight do you think you'd have been able to take if you'd known what you know now?"
"But I love you!"
"You even kid yourself about that.
You don't love me. You never have.
You're in love with a memory. The memory of a girl who preferred your father to you.
The first chance you had, you tried to make me over in her image. Even in bed – the things you wanted me to do.
Did you really think I was so naive I didn't know those were the things she did to you?"
The ring was still in her hand. She put it on the table in front of him.
"Here," she said.
He stared down at the ring.