U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [229]
-116-to she turned her face towards his. Their cheeks touched and his mouth slid around and kissed her hard on her mouth. She pushed him away with a jerk.
"Hey, you're not trying to throw me overboard, are you?" he said, laughing. "Look, Eveline, won't you give me a little tiny kiss to show there's no hard feeling. There's just you and me tonight on the whole broad Atlantic." She kissed him scaredly on the chin.
"Say, Eveline, I like you so much. You're the swel est girl." She smiled at him and suddenly he was hugging her tight, his legs hard and strong against her legs, his hands spread over her back, his lips trying to open her lips. She got her mouth away from him.
"No, no, please don't," she could hear her little creaky voice saying.
"Al right, I'm sorry. . . . No more caveman stuff, honest injun, Eveline. But you mustn't forget that you're the most attractive girl on the boat. . . . I mean in the world, you know how a fel er feels."
He started down first. Letting herself down through the opening in the bottom of the crowsnest she began to get dizzy. She was fal ing. His arms tightened around her.
"That's al right, girly, your foot slipped," he said gruffly in her ear. "I've got you." Her head was swimming, she couldn't seem to make her arms and legs work; she could hear her little moaning voice, "Don't drop me, Dirk, don't drop me." When they final y got down the ladder to the deck Dirk leaned against the mast and let out a long breath,
"Whee
. . . you certainly gave me a scare, young lady."
"I'm so sorry," she said. "It was sil y of me to suddenly get girlish like that. . . . I must have fainted for a min-ute."
"Gosh, I oughtn't to have taken you up there."
"I'm glad you did," Eveline said; then she found her-self blushing and hurried off down the main deck to the first class entrance and the stateroom, where she had to
-117-make up a story to explain to mother how she'd torn her stocking. She couldn't sleep that night but lay awake in her bunk listening to the distant rhythm of the engines and the creaking of the ship and the seethe of churned seas that came in through the open porthole. She could stil feel the soft brush of his cheek and the sudden tightening muscles of his arms around her shoulder. She knew now she was terribly in love with Dirk and wished he'd propose to her. But next morning she was real y flattered when Judge Ganch, a tal whitehaired lawyer from Salt Lake City with a young red face and a breezy manner sat on the end of her deckchair and talked to her by the hour about his early life in the west and his unhappy marriage and politics and Teddy Roosevelt and the progressive party. She'd rather have been with Dirk, but it made her feel pretty and ex-cited to see Dirk walk past with his nose out of joint while she listened to Judge Ganch's stories. She wished the trip would never end.
Back in Chicago she saw a lot of Dirk McArthur. He
always kissed her when he brought her home and he held her very tight when he danced with her and sometimes used to hold her hand and tel her what a nice girl she was, but he never would say anything about getting mar-ried. Once she met Sal y Emerson at a dance she'd gone to with Dirk she had to admit that she wasn't doing any painting, and Sal y Emerson looked so disappointed that Eveline felt quite ashamed and started talking fast about Gordon Craig and an exhibition of Matisse she'd seen in Paris. Sal y Emerson was just leaving. A young man was waiting to dance with Eveline. Sal y Emerson took her hand and said: "But, Eveline, you mustn't forget that we have high hopes of you." And while she was dancing everything that Sal y Emerson stood for and how wonder-ful she used to think her came sweeping through Eveline's head; but driving home with Dirk al these thoughts were