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“Yes,” he said. “I know about aching.”

Then she said, “The other one is jealous.”

Later she said, “They didn’t plan things right for me to have two breasts and you only one way to kiss. They made everything so far apart.”

His hand covered the other, the pressure between the fingers barely touching and then his lips wandered up over all the lovely coolness and met hers. They met and brushed very lightly, sweeping from side to side, losing nothing of the lovely outer screen and then he kissed her.

“Oh darling,” she said. “Oh please darling. My dearest kind lovely love. Oh please, please, please my dear love.”

After quite a long time she said, “I’m so sorry if I was selfish about your bath. But when I came out of mine I was selfish.”

“You weren’t selfish.”

“Roger, do you still love me?”

“Yes, daughter.”

“Do you change how you feel afterwards?”

“No,” he lied.

“I don’t at all. I just feel better afterwards. I mustn’t tell you.”

“You tell me.”

“No. I won’t tell you too much. But we do have a lovely time don’t we?”

“Yes,” he said very truthfully.

“After we bathe we can go out.”

“I’ll go now.”

“You know maybe we ought to stay tomorrow. I ought to have my nails done and my hair washed. I can do it all myself but you might like it better done properly. That way we could sleep late and then have part of one day in town and then leave the next morning.”

“That would be good.”

“I like New Orleans now. Don’t you?”

“New Orleans is wonderful. It’s changed a lot since we came here.”

“I’ll go in. I’ll only be a minute. Then you can bathe.”

“I only want a shower.”

Afterwards they went down in the elevator. There were Negro girls who ran the elevators and they were pretty. The elevator was full with a party from the floor above so they went down fast. Going down in the elevator made him feel hollower than ever inside. He felt Helena against him where they were crowded.

“If you ever get so that you don’t feel anything when you see flying fish go out of water or when an elevator drops you better turn in your suit,” he said to her.

“I feel it still,” she said. “Are those the only things you have to turn in your suit for?”

The door had opened and they were crossing the old-fashioned marble lobby crowded at this hour with people waiting for other people, people waiting to go to dinner, people just waiting, and Roger said, “Walk ahead and let me see you.”

“Where do I walk to?”

“Straight toward the door of the air-conditioned bar.”

He caught her at the door.

“You’re beautiful. You walk wonderfully and if I were here and saw you now for the first time I’d be in love with you.”

“If I saw you across the room I’d be in love with you.”

“If I saw you for the first time everything would turn over inside of me and I’d ache right through my chest.”

“That’s the way I feel all of the time.”

“You can’t feel that way all of the time.”

“Maybe not. But I can feel that way an awfully big part of the time.”

“Daughter, isn’t New Orleans a fine place?”

“Weren’t we lucky to come here?”

It felt very cold in the big high-ceilinged, pleasant, dark-wood panelled bar room and Helena, sitting beside Roger at a table, said, “Look,” and showed him the tiny prickles of gooseflesh on her brown arm. “You can do that to me too,” she said. “But this time it’s air conditioning.”

“It’s really cold. It feels wonderful.”

“What should we drink?”

“Should we get tight?”

“Let’s gel a little tight.”

“I’ll drink absinthe then.”

“Do you think I should?”

“Why don’t you try it. Didn’t you ever?”

“No. I was saving it to drink with you.”

“Don’t make up things.”

“It’s not made up. I truly did.”

“Daughter, don’t make up a lot of things.”

“It’s not made up. I didn’t save my maidenly state because I thought it would bore you and besides I gave you up for a while. But I did save absinthe. Truly.”

“Do you have any real absinthe?” Roger asked the bar waiter.

“It’s not supposed to be,” the waiter said. “But I have some.”

“The real Couvet