From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [483]
It was all strange, and the sense of strangeness colored everything.
Karen was sitting in a big chair by the bed under the floor lamp reading a book, as the girl closed the door behind him softly. She had her legs drawn up against the chair arm in the green skirt tucked tight under her knees. Her small bag that he remembered was sitting on the floor by the dresser. She looked completely secure and at home. She looked at peace.
“Hello, darling,” she smiled.
“Hello,” Warden said. “Hello.” He went to meet her, and she left the book on the chair arm and rose to meet him, in that same funny odd reserved way she had that he had almost forgotten.
He put his arms around her and it was not like touching a foreign object but rather, like touching your own body, the way a man will clasp his own two hands together, in the cold perhaps, to keep them warm, as he has every right to do, without asking anyone’s permission, since they are his hands.
He could not tell her yet. Not just yet.
He kissed her, and she kissed him back. Then she drew away with that funny odd reserve of hers, and he let her go watching her smile that deeper smile.
“You’ll get yourself all excited,” she smiled. “Lets talk a while. Lets sit down.”
She sat back down in the chair and drew her legs up tight against her with her arms, and smiled at him over her knees.
Warden sat down on the bed edge.
“You dont look a bit different,” she smiled.
“I feel different,” Warden said.
“It was nice of them to let us come here.”
She said it sincerely, yet there was no gratitude in her, and no surprise, at the free use of a stranger’s house. It was like her smile, that same smile he had never seen in any other woman, at once so warmly loving and so very very far away.
“It was Stark who arranged it,” Warden said.
“I know,” she smiled. “The girl told me. She’s a very lovely girl.”
“Yes.”
“And she’s very much in love with Stark.”
“Yes.”
“Is he in love with her?”
“I dont know. I think so. Some. But not as much, and not in the same way, as she loves him.”
“I know,” she said quickly. “I’ve hurt him very much.”
“No. He hurt himself.”
He did not mention the six months at Bliss. He looked at it in his mind, and watched it fade away, so that he had no need to say it.
“Oh, I do hope he can fall in love with her,” Karen burst out suddenly, “the same way she loves him.”
“Maybe he will,” Warden lied.
“Oh, I hope so. He deserves it. He’s a fine person. I’d like a chance to thank him for this, before he leaves.”
“He didnt come. He had some work to do and had to go back.”
“That isnt true,” Karen said.
“No, it isnt true. He was afraid it would embarrass you.”
Moisture welled up in her eyes, as he had seen it do before, over Prewitt, and then sank back down quietly, without ever overflowing.
“He’s a fine person,” she said, “a very fine person.”
“Yes,” Warden said.
“He deserves much more than he’s had.”
“Everyone does.”
“Maybe he’ll find it with her.”
“Maybe he will,” Warden lied again. He felt a very great tenderness, such as one feels with a beautiful child, and with it the same selfish unreasonable urge to protect it from all the things it does not know yet, not because of saving it hurt, but to keep it beautiful.
“Did you have any trouble getting away?” he asked.
“No.”
“Didnt Holmes say anything at all?”
“He forbade me to come,” she said simply.
“And you came anyway?”
“Of course, darling,” she smiled. “I love you.”
For a moment Warden thought he could not stand it, not mental agony, but purely physically, physiologically, could not stand it.
“I’ve got something I have to tell you,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Its about my appointment in the Reserve Corps.”
“I already know,” Karen smiled. “Its all they have been talking about back at Schofield for the past week.”
“And you mean you’ve known it all along? When I first came in the room?”
“Yes.”
“Even when I called you?”
“Yes.”
“And still you came anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Even when Holmes forbade you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you wanted me to come. Because I