A FALSE NOTE
69
He grinned. "No, ma'am," he said. "I'm most glad that you
consider me a friend...."
She took his arm again. She did not press the invitation. They
are so sensitive, she thought, everything is so difficult for them.
Is it any wonder that they are sensitive, that everything is so difficult?
But one night, after she had gone to bed, her doorbell rang,
and throwing her robe about her, she went to peer through the
crack of the door, and he was standing there in the hall. She was
jolted, her heart became a rivet, her blood a hammer. But she would
not withdraw the door chain to let him in.
"Oh," she said. "What is it? I couldn't imagine who it was."
He said jauntily, "I took you up on your invitation. You wanted
me to come up, didn't you?"
"But..." Then, impulsively, she pulled back on the chain and
let him in, drawing him out of the light of the hallway. "It's so late,"
she said. "It's no hour for a visit."
She could smell his clothes then, the odor of stale grease and
the rancidness of whisky. "You've been drinking," she said. "What's
the matter with you?... Are you drunk?"
"No," he told her. "I'm not drunk. I don't get drunk easy."
"Well, then, what do you want? Couldn't you have waited until
tomorrow?"
"It's nothing," he said. "I've just come to visit...like you said."
"Oh..." Her hand leaped to her mouth.
She knew suddenly that it was more than that. And now, with
the bulk of him confronting her, she was tom, frightened. Is this
what I really wanted, she asked herself, is it this. . .and her mind
scampered for an exit, for an escape. But he was there, in the
shadow of her room, scrutinizing her with a fixed dispassion, as
though aware of her struggle, and waiting, watching, to see what she
would do. And under his stare, she was shaken with fear, a sense of
terrifying consummation. This is what I wanted, but she could not
look into his face, this is what I wanted.... And she was engulfed
in the hammering excitement, a kind of expectant rapture. And she
wanted to reach out now and touch him, but she dared not, breathless.
"Do you want me to stay?" he asked quietly. "Is that what
you want?"
"Yes, yes," she breathed quickly. "I want you to stay."
But he made no move. He stood in the shadow with his arms
