The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy [25]
“Well,” I said finally, over by the bookshelves. “Well, I’m awfully sorry to hear about all this—I mean your—” I was over by the window by now. “I mean I didn’t dream that you’d be so easily.…” Back to the mantel. “Oh, hell. Of course I can’t marry you. It never occurred to me you’d ever want to. I just thought you’d be the ideal teacher to—you know, the ideal person to sharpen the old teeth on,” I finished, drifting back to the arm of the sofa and bending over him to see if he understood.
“I see,” he murmured sadly into the floor. “I see. You were using me.”
“Hey, do you know that’s just what I thought you’d say?” I exclaimed excitedly.
“Ah, so?” This didn’t cheer him up any.
“But we were using each other!” I said triumphantly.
At this he turned and looked up at me shrewdly. “Using each other,” he mused. Suddenly his manner changed. It became brisk, businesslike and determined.
“Yes, that is it, of course,” he said, and he swung three-quarters round and crushed out his cigarette.
“Now see here, Miss Gorce—” he began masterfully, but instantly realized he would be spoiling his effect by having to look up at me on that sofa arm. Abandoning this position forthwith he began complaining about my name. “Gorce,” he said, staring into the middle distance and shaking his head in wonder. “Gorce! You Americans.…” (People really do say You Americans, by the way.) “Nevertheless, charming, enchanting Miss Gorce, please do not be offended if I tell you that you still have much to learn. You may find it amusing now, at your age in life, to be this—this—ragamuffin—but it will not always be so. You will understand what I mean when I take you to Florence to meet my family. You should know that we are one of the oldest families there—and one of the proudest. Ah yes—I know you Americans like to sneer at background, but wait—after you are among us for a while you will soon discover how barbaric most of your compatriots will appear to you, and you will realize how important it is. That is something I can do for you.”
“Why that’s great, man,” I said. “That sounds just great. But why pick on li’l ole me?”
“Because you are not stupid,” he replied gravely. “You can learn. You could become a remarkable woman some day. And you are young and obviously healthy. I am sure I do not have to tell you how proud I am as well of the name and how I wish to see it continued.”
I don’t know why, but somehow that gave me pause. “Tell me something,” I asked him, “tell me exactly how we would live. This isn’t just idle curiosity. It’s difficult to explain, but I just somehow feel that I never really have lived; that I never really will live—exist or whatever—in the sense that other people do. It drives me crazy. I was terribly aware of it all those nights waiting for you in the Ritz bar looking around at what seemed to be real grown-up lives. I just find everybody else’s life surrounded by plate glass. I mean I’d like to break through it just once and actually touch one.”
He smiled. “Well, my dear, I am afraid those lives at the Ritz will have to remain under plate glass for a while. You see, most of the money was my wife’s. As you may know, the Diplomatic Service does not pay very well even in its highest positions. Oh, we shouldn’t starve. I have good prospects and good contacts, while you as an American would be invaluable should we be transferred over there. An excellent post. The living allowance is double that of any other place. And you will have some money of your own, of course, will you not? Surely this uncle of yours will supply you with the equivalent of what we call in Europe a dowry?” He said this perfectly seriously, and then broke off, puzzled to find me roaring with laughter.
I howled and howled. In fact, I fell off the arm and into the sofa almost on top of him. “Oh, no, no, no,” I gasped. “This is too much.”
“What is it?” he asked. He was getting worried.
I tried to tell him three times and each time I collapsed. I finally