He kissed her without enjoying it.
He knew that there was passion there, but there was no shadow of it in her eyes or on her mouth; there was a faint spray of champagne on her breath.
She clung nearer desperately and once more he kissed her and was chilled by the innocence of her kiss, by the glance that at the moment of contact looked beyond him out into the darkness of the night, the darkness of the world.
She did not know yet that splendor is something in the heart; at the moment when she realized that and melted into the passion of the universe he could take her without question or regret.
Her room in the hotel was diagonally across from theirs and nearer the elevator.
When they reached the door she said suddenly:
“I know you don’t love me—I don’t expect it.
But you said I should have told you about my birthday.
Well, I did, and now for my birthday present I want you to come into my room a minute while I tell you something.
Just one minute.”
They went in and he closed the door, and Rosemary stood close to him, not touching him.
The night had drawn the color from her face—she was pale as pale now, she was a white carnation left after a dance.
“When you smile—” He had recovered his paternal attitude, perhaps because of Nicole’s silent proximity, “I always think I’ll see a gap where you’ve lost some baby teeth.”
But he was too late—she came close up against him with a forlorn whisper.
“Take me.”
“Take you where?”
Astonishment froze him rigid.
“Go on,” she whispered.
“Oh, please go on, whatever they do.
I don’t care if I don’t like it—I never expected to—I’ve always hated to think about it but now I don’t.
I want you to.”
She was astonished at herself—she had never imagined she could talk like that.
She was calling on things she had read, seen, dreamed through a decade of convent hours.
Suddenly she knew too that it was one of her greatest roles and she flung herself into it more passionately.
“This is not as it should be,” Dick deliberated.
“Isn’t it just the champagne?
Let’s more or less forget it.”
“Oh, no, NOW.
I want you to do it now, take me, show me, I’m absolutely yours and I want to be.”
“For one thing, have you thought how much it would hurt Nicole?”
“She won’t know—this won’t have anything to do with her.”
He continued kindly.
“Then there’s the fact that I love Nicole.”
“But you can love more than just one person, can’t you?
Like I love Mother and I love you—more.
I love you more now.”
“—the fourth place you’re not in love with me but you might be afterwards, and that would begin your life with a terrible mess.”
“No, I promise I’ll never see you again.
I’ll get Mother and go to America right away.”
He dismissed this.
He was remembering too vividly the youth and freshness of her lips.
He took another tone.
“You’re just in that mood.”
“Oh, please, I don’t care even if I had a baby.
I could go into Mexico like a girl at the studio.
Oh, this is so different from anything I ever thought—I used to hate it when they kissed me seriously.”
He saw she was still under the impression that it must happen.
“Some of them had great big teeth, but you’re all different and beautiful.
I want you to do it.”
“I believe you think people just kiss some way and you want me to kiss you.”