All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [132]
“My, my,” I said, “but the picture of the daughter of Governor Stanton at lunch with Governor Stark would certainly throw the society editor of the Chronicle into a tizzy. Your frock, my dear–what frock did you wear? And flowers? Did you drink champagne cocktails? Did–”
“I drank a Coca Cola, and I ate a cheese sandwich. In the cafeteria in the basement of the Capitol.”
“Pardon my curiosity, but–”
“–but you want to know how I got there. I’ll tell you. I went to see Governor Stark about getting state money for the Children’s Home. And I–”
“Does Adam know?” I asked.
“–and I’m going to get it, too. I’m to prepare a detailed report and–”
“Does Adam know?”
“It doesn’t matter whether Adam knows or not–and I’m to take the report back to–”
“I can imagine what Adam would say,” I remarked grimly.
“I guess I can manage my own affairs,” she said with some heat.
“Gee,” I said, and noticed that the blood had mounted a little in her cheeks, “I thought you and Adam were always just like that.” And I held my right hand up with forefinger and the next one side by side.
“We are,” she said, “but I don’t care what–”
“–and you don’t care what he–” and I jerked a thumb toward the high, unperturbed, marmoreal face which gazed from the massy gold frame in the shadow–“would say about it either, huh?
“Oh, Jack–” and she rose from the couch, almost fretful in her motion, which wasn’t like her–“what makes you talk like that? Can’t you see? I’m just getting the money for the Home. It’s a piece of business. Just business.” She jerked her chin up with a look that was supposed to settle the matter, but succeeded in unsettling me.
“Listen,” I said, and felt myself getting hot under the collar, “business or not, it’s worth your reputation to be caught running round with–”
“Running round, running round!” she exclaimed. “Don’t be a fool. I had lunch with him. On business.”
“Business or not, it’s worth your reputation, and–”
“Reputation,” she said. “I’m old enough to take care of my reputation. You just told me I was nearly senile.”
“I said you were nearly thirty-five,” I said, factually.
“Oh, Jack ,” she said, “I am, and I haven’t done anything. I don’t do anything. Not anything worth anything.” She wavered there and with a hint of distraction lifted her hands to touch her hair. “Not anything. I don’t want to play bridge all the time. And what little I do–that Home, the playground thing–”
“There’s always the Junior League,” I said. But she ignored it.
“–that’s not enough. Why didn’t I do something–study something? Be a doctor, a nurse. I could have been Adam’s assistant. I could have studied landscape gardening. I could have–”
“You could make lampshades,” I said.
“I could have done something–something–”
“You could have got married,” I said. “You could have married me.”
“Oh, I don’t mean just getting married, I mean–”
“You don’t know what you mean,” I said.
“Oh, Jack,” she said, and reached out and took my hand and hung on to it, “maybe I don’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. When I come out here sometimes–I’m happy when I come, I truly am, but them–”
She didn’t say any more about it. By this time she had sunk her head to my chest, and I had given her a few comforting pats on the shoulder, and she had said in a muffled sort of way that I had to be her friend, and I had said, “Sure,” and had caught some good whiffs of the way her hair smelled. It smelled just the way it always had, a good, clean, well-washed, little-girl-ready-for-a-party smell. But she wasn’t a little girl and this wasn’t a party. It definitely was not a party. With pink ice cream and devil’s-food cake and horns to blow and we all played clap-in and clap-out and the game in which you sang about King William being King James’s son and down on this carpet you must kneel sure as the grass grows in the field and choose the one you love best.
She stood there for a minute or two with her head on my chest, and you could have seen daylight between her and her friend, if there had been any daylight, while her friend gave her the impersonal and