526
PARTISAN REVIEW
practised
all
these excesses in a methodical uncommunicative frenzy
of sensual enjoyment, and when he made love, Jenny knew he forgot
who she was. Yet he still managed to look like a young monk during
Lent. He had told her once that his mother had not been able to keep
him after she was deserted by his f ather, she had turned
him
over to
three dreadful old great aunts who never gave him enough to eat.
Hunger was in his bones. Vague maternal feelings of the kind she
abhorred in herself welled up in her.
"David," she said, in a soft blurr.ed voice, and he saw in surprise
the familiar change in her face, the gentle blinded look of abject
tenderness which came at the most unexpected times, mysterious but
real for the moment, touching and believable.
"What is it, Jenny angel?" he asked, very gently, and waited
for her to repent of something, to offer some concession, which later
she would take back or deny when her mood haa changed and
hardened again.
"I am glad you have decided to go to Spain," she said. "Let's go
there first. I've always wanted to go to France, I shall always want
to go. Any time at all. It will always be there, I have time. But you
want to go to Spain now. So let's. I wish
we
had never drawn those
straws."
"It was your idea," said David. "I have a notion we'll land up
in France, after all."
"We are going to Germany," said J enny. "Unless we can get a
visa, and the boat stops at Boulogne after all. Those Cuban boys
are saying there is an old maritime law-a Captain is bound to put
you down at the port you have paid passage to. But the purser told
Mrs. Treadwell that the fare is the same from Gijon onward, the
ship isn't bound to stop anywhere at all between Gijon and Bremer–
haven. And the Captain has said positively we do not stop at Boulogne.
So when we get to Bremerhaven, let's toss a coin, once; heads for
Spain, tails for France; and let's buy our tickets then and there before
something else happens to start us off on another tack." She became
very gay at the prospect of settling a question. "Oh David, let's just
do this and end the worry. This would be such a nice voyage if only
we knew where we were going."
David could not or would not make the decision. "Let's wait,"
he said, after a long uneasy pause. "I don't know where I want to
go."
He had meant to quarrel with her about Freytag ; for once he
had her fairly in the wrong. She had intended to give a comic and
cruel account of his behavior of the night before. But there was no-
