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“What?” he asked in apparent apprehension.

“We don’t care what anybody else thinks, do we?”

“Of course not, Kid,” he said, trying to be casual.

“And today is a lovely day, and it’s going to be ours, too, isn’t it? No matter what we got ahead of us, we’re not going to worry today, are we?”

He agreed with her by a cryptic nod of the head, and thought, if she would only forget to worry, and would go along, chattering away, it would make him feel lighter. It would be like a kind of sleep. It made him realize how, of late, she had seemed to slide away from all the things she used to do, from her girl friends, and bridge club, and every-thing like that. It made him feel a little lousy about it all, because look what she was getting for all this sacrifice!

“Maybe it would be a good idea for you to go to the next meeting of your bridge club.”

“You’re not trying to pawn me off, are you?” she asked, surprised.

“Why, no, no, Kid. I was only wondering if it might not be a nice change for you from a guy like me, and you know, help you to keep your mind off worrying.”

“You silly boy! You men! You’re not just a guy, and I’m not worrying, and I never will because I know you love me, darling.”

“I don’t want you to be worrying, you know.”

“You’re such a sweet boy. Why should I be worrying when you’re going to be all mine, my husband in just three short weeks? What could I be getting to make me happier?”

“Well, now ... ” he halted because he didn’t know what he really wanted to say.

“I hope the water isn’t cold,” she said.

“It won’t be,” he said, just to make the conversation go on.

“I won’t be able to go swimming soon.”

Her remark brought it all back to him clearly. Christ, if he could only get her to take some medicine that would bring her around. But after what Father Geoghan had said about such things: murder, killing an innocent, unborn soul, fat chance he had of convincing her. Maybe if she ran around the beach and got plenty of exercise, it might happen naturally.

“Come on, let’s walk faster,” he said.

II

Studs and Catherine descended over a small area of rocky, sandy beach to the shore line, and the lake, blue, with sunlight on it, stretched out and out, like some vast cloth.

“Gee, it’s crowded all right today,” Studs said.

“Naturally, since it’s Sunday.”

“But, no, it’s crowded even for a Sunday,” Studs said weightily, looking around him at the lively, noisy crowd, their bathing suits lending a variegation of color to the scene. His eye caught a slender girl, her body bronzed from sunlight and pinched into an abbreviated one-piece red swimming suit. She stood looking toward the water like a girl in an advertising picture, her head flung back. The glimpse of her caused Studs to see Catherine as small, and plain, and dumpy, and he felt sorry for her. He wanted to look again at the slender bronzed girl, but feared that Catherine might notice him. If she guessed his thoughts and wishes now when he saw other girls, she’d be hurt, and it would be damn lousy to hurt her, considering the circumstances. And yet he had these thoughts, these wishes that girls like the bronzed one were his instead of Catherine. And Catherine, too, she looked better dressed up than in a swimming suit. He glanced sidewise but closely at her. Nothing to notice yet, because she was a little round in the stomach anyway. Her skin was white, and it looked a little rough, and her thighs and legs seemed kind of chunky. Other guys got better-looking girls.

They paused at the pebbly shore line. Studs suddenly felt himself small and puny, and he stood, with the incoming waters curling over his feet, sticking his shoulders back and throwing out his chest. He ran through the waters, dove under in shallow water, and popped up wetted, with drops trickling from his mussed hair.

“Come on in, it won’t hurt you,” he called while Catherine waded in carefully.

“You let me come in my own way!” she shouted back, proceeding slowly, as if afraid to wet her swimming suit.

All about them the water was jammed with a shouting, splashing, joshing, kicking,