340
PARTISAN REVIEW
Still, he had not quite relinquished the idea of marrying her, and,
once, very late in the afternoon, he struck out at her with unexpected,
clumsy ferocity.
"You need a man to take care of you," he exclaimed. "I hate to see
you go hack to that life you've been living in New York. Your father
ought to make you stay home in Portland. In a few years, you'll he one
of those Bohemian horrors with oily hair and long earrings. It makes me
sick to think about it."
She pressed her lips together, and was amazed to find how hurt she
was. It was unthinkable that he should speak of her way of life with such
contempt; it was as if he had made a point of telling her that her gayest,
wickedest, most extravagant hat was ugly and out-of-fashion.
"But you fell in love with me because I
am
Bohemian," she said,
forcing herself to smile, to take a suave and reasonable tone.
"No,'' he said, in a truculently sentimental voice. "It's because under–
neath all that you're just a sweet girl.''
She shook her head impatiently. It was not true, of course, hut it
was hopeless to argue with him about it. Clearly, he took some cruel
satisfaction in telling her $at she was different from what she was. That
implied that he had not fallen in love with her at all, but with some other
person: the whole extraordinary little idyll had been based on a misunder–
standing. . Poor Marianna, she thought, poor pickings, to be loved under
cover of darkness in Isabella's name! She did not speak for a long time.
Night fell again, and the little dinner that was presently served lacked
the glamour of the earlier meals. The Union Pacific's menu had been
winnowed out; they were reduced to steak and Great Big Baked Potatoes.
She wished that they were out in the diner, in full view, eating some
unusual dish and drinking a bottle of white wine. Even here in the com–
partment, she had hoped that he would offer her wine; the waiter sug·
gested it, but the man shook his head without consulting her; his excesses
in drink and love were beginning to tell on him; he looked tired and sick.
But by ten o'clock, when they were well out of Reno, she had warmed
to him agail]. He had been begging her to let him send her a present; the
notion displeased her at first; she felt a certain arrogant condescension
in
it; she refused to permit it, refused, even, to give him her address. Then
he looked at her suddenly, with all the old humility and square self–
knowledge in his brown eyes.
""Look," he said, "you'll be doing me a kindness. You see, that's
the only thing a man like me can do for a woman is buy her things and
love her a hell of a lot at night. I'm different from your literary boy
friends and your artistic boy friends. I can't write you a poem or paint
your picture. The only way I can show that I love you is to spend money
on you."
"Money's your medium,'' she said, smiling, happy in this further
insight he had given her, happy in her own gift of concise expression.
He nodded and she gave her consent. It must, however, be a very
