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“Well-what do you say?”

Between the moment that the match flared and the time she dropped it in the ashtray, May’s mind raced through a long series of thoughts. The gist of them was a sense of insecurity and dissatisfaction, and a suspicion that she was in a bad corner. “What do you want me to say, Willie?”

“That you’ll marry me.”

May shrugged. This tepid, matter-of-fact courtship was no part of love and marriage as she had vaguely imagined it. But common sense was her strong point, and she thought she had better take what was offered. She wanted Willie. “You know me, Willie-hard to get,” she said, with an abashed, confused smile and a blush. “When? Where? What do you want to do?”

Willie, with a heavy sigh, clasped her hand tightly and said, “Those are the things we have to think about next.”

May sat up straight and shot a glance at him full of her old wariness. “Look dear, let’s get one thing straight. If you’re starting a little home for fallen women, I’m not interested. I don’t want you to marry me because you’re sorry for me, or because you want to do the manly thing by me, or anything like that.”

“I love you, May.”

“You’d better think about the whole thing some more.”

“I don’t want to think about it any more,” said Willie, but his tone lacked conviction. He was confused about his motives, and suspected that misguided chivalry might be at the bottom of his proposal. Willie Keith was steeped in suburban morality, and he was inexperienced, and moreover, he was not the brightest young man on the planet. The night he had spent with May had sunk the girl in his esteem though it had heightened her as an object of desire. He did not really know what he ought to do, and on the whole was as miserable as a young man might be with a beautiful girl like May at his side and within his grasp.

“Are you going to talk to your mother about it?”

“Well, I guess she’d better know, the sooner the better.”

“That’s a conversation I’d like to hear.”

“I’ll repeat it for you tonight, after I talk to her,” said Willie. “Word for word.”

After a long silence Willie said, “There’s the matter of religion. How strongly do you feel about-about yours?” It was a great effort to bring the words out. He was embarrassed by a feeling that he was being stupidly and falsely solemn about something that was totally unreal.

May said, “I’m afraid I’m not a good Catholic by any means, Willie. That won’t be a problem.”

“Well, fine.” The bus turned in to a roadside restaurant and stopped. Willie jumped up with great relief. “Come on, let’s get some coffee or I’ll die.”

An old lady who was unpacking a lunch basket on her lap in one of the forward seats glanced up with sentimental pleasure at the pretty red-haired girl in the camel’s-hair coat, and the young pink-cheeked ensign in his long, gold-buttoned bridge coat, white silk scarf, and white officer’s cap. “Now there,” she said to the old gentleman by her side, whose eyes were on the lunch basket, “there goes a darling couple.”

CHAPTER 17

Two Bottles of Champagne

Maryk was awakened from an uneasy sleep by the sound of a metal drill directly over his face, a few inches from his skull. He threw aside the piled blankets on his bunk and leaped down, shuddering as his naked feet touched the clammy deck. He put on grease-stained khakis by the light of an electric lantern.

He had that most miserable of Navy watches, the twenty-four-hour stretch as duty officer on a cold ship in drydock. The Caine was a corpse of iron. Heat, light, power were gone. Boilers and main engines lay disemboweled. The fuel oil was all pumped out, and the purr of the ventilators, the vessel’s breathing noise, was stilled. A thousand rattles, bangs, screeches, scrapes, and grinding shocks replaced it. Yard workmen were executing yet another rejuvenation by plastic surgery on the scarred old ship. The foggy San Francisco air drifted stagnantly through the passageways, rancid with the smell of mildew, and the staterooms and crew’s quarters