From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [487]
Then, still thinking about it, he realized with a shock why she hadnt seen through it. She had been too busy concentrating on making her own convincing to him, to notice his.
He hoped she didnt have any trouble with Holmes.
Chapter 55
MAJOR HOLMES WAS WAITING for his wife when she got home the next morning.
Karen did not get there till almost eleven. The beautiful almost-unearthly-lovely Chinese-Hawaiian girl had thoughtfully been very quiet for her in the house, and she had slept till after nine. Then, when she did get up, the lovely girl cooked breakfast for them, and the two of them sat for another hour in the little dinette, over their eggs and canned ham and coffee, with the sun streaming summer-bright through the windows, two happily adulterous wives, discussing with each other in a warm friendly intimacy the fine traits of character in their lovers. The sun, the air, the whole day had the feel of a summer holiday. It was an experience Karen had never had, and would not have missed if Holmes had had to wait till four o’clock. The feeling of holiday stayed with her all the way home.
Holmes was sitting stubbornly doggedly at the kitchen table with a cup of his own coffee.
Being a Major had not changed Capt Holmes greatly. He had put off the breeches and boots and Cavalryman’s hat, in exchange for the staff officer’s slacks and low-quarters and regular Infantry hat. And now, like the rest of the staff officers in Brigade, he wore the regulation wartime uniform of OD woolen shirt and CKC slacks stuffed into leggins over field shoes. But basically, it had not changed him much. Of course, it had only been a few months.
“I want to know where you’ve been,” he said, as she came in.
“Hello,” Karen said gaily. “How come you’re not at the office?”
“I called them and got the morning off.”
“Wheres Bella?”
“I gave her the day off.”
Karen poured herself a cup of his coffee and sat down at the table with him.
“I bet that made her happy,” she said happily. “And so now, everything’s all prepared for the show.”
“I said, I want to know where you’ve been,” Holmes said. “And with whom.”
“But I told you all that yesterday, darling,” Karen said merrily. “I was saying good-by to a very dear friend.”
“Dont call me darling.”
“All right,” Karen said cheerfully. “It was figurative.”
“You didnt tell me anything yesterday.” Holmes’s eyes were like two frantically brilliant diamonds in the dried, cracked plaster of his face. “You didnt tell me where you were meeting him, and you didnt tell me who he was.”
“I didnt say it was a him,” Karen said.
“But it was. You think I havent known about it. But I’ve known about it all along. I even tried to ignore it, as long as I could. Until it got too flagrantly open. Now I want to know where you met him and just who he is.”
“I dont think thats any of your business,” Karen said.
“I’m your husband,” Holmes said. “It is my business.”
“Not it isnt. Its my business,” Karen said. “And no one else’s. You sound like a page right out of Hemingway.”
“Maybe I’ll make it my business.”
“No,” Karen said, “I dont think you will.”
“I suppose now you want a divorce.”
“I hadnt really thought about it. One way or the other.”
“Well, I wont give you one.”
Karen sipped her coffee. She could not remember having felt so happy, so zestful, so full of just plain healthy animal spirits, since before she was married.
“You hear me? I wont give you one.”
“All right,” Karen said agreeably.
Holmes looked at her, the frantic diamonds of his eyes sparkling at her desperately out of his plaster-paris face. Even in his acute distress, he could see she was not acting.
“Maybe I’ll get the divorce,” he said, trying a frontal attack.
“All right,” Karen said agreeably.
“We might as well settle it right now,” Holmes said. “I want to get this thing settled once and for all.”
“As far as I can see, its already settled. You’re going to get the divorce.”
“Ha,” Holmes said. “Yes, you’d love that, wouldnt you? Well, I