U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [346]
Dick jumped at the job. When he heard Anne Elizabeth's voice over the phone, chil y panic went through him again, but he made his voice as agreeable as he could. "Oh, you were a darling to come, Dicky boy," she was saying. He met her at a café at the corner of the Piazza Venezia. It made him feel embarrassed the uncontrol ed way she ran up to him and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. "It's al right," she said laughing,
"they'l just think we're a couple of crazy Americans . . . Oh, Dick, lemme look at you . . . Oh, Dickyboy, I've been so lone-some for you." Dick's throat was tight. "We can have supper together,
-386-can't we?" he managed to say. "I thought we might get hold of Ed Schuyler." She'd picked out a smal hotel on a back street for them to go to. Dick let himself be carried away by her; after al , she was quite pretty today with her cheeks so flushed, and the smel of her hair made him think of the smel of the little cyclamens on the hil above Tivoli; but al the time he was making love to her, sweating and straining in her arms, wheels were going round in his head: what can I do, can I do, can I do?
They were so late getting to Ed's place that he had given them up. He was al packed up to leave Rome for Paris and home the next day. "That's fine," said Dick,
"we'l go on the same train.""This is my last night in Rome, ladies and gentlemen," said Ed, "let's go and have a bangup supper and to hel with the Red Cross." They ate an elaborate supper with first class wines, at a place in front of Trajan's column, but Dick couldn't taste anything. His own voice sounded tinnily in his ears. He could see that Ed was making mighty efforts to cheer things up, ordering fresh bottles, kidding the waiter, tel -ing funny stories about his misadventures with Roman ladies. Anne Elizabeth drank a lot of wine, said that the N.E.R. dragons weren't as bad as she had painted them, that they'd given her a latchkey when she'd told them her fiancé was in Rome for just that evening. She kept nudg-ing Dick's knee with hers under the table and wanting them to sing Auld Lang Syne. After dinner they rode around in a cab and stopped to drop coins in the Trevi fountain. They ended up at Ed's place sitting on packing boxes, finishing up a bottle of champagne Ed suddenly remembered and singing Auprès de ma blonde. Al the time Dick felt sober and cold inside. It was a relief when Ed announced drunkenly that he was going to visit some lovely Roman ladies of his acquaintance for the last time and leave his flat to I promessi sposi for the
-387-night. After he'd gone Anne Elizabeth threw her arms around Dick: "Give me one kiss, Dickyboy, and then you must take me back to the Methodist Board of Temperance and Public Morals . . . after al , it's private morals that count. Oh, I love our private morals." Dick kissed her, then he went and looked out of the window. It had started to rain again. Frail ribbons of light from a streetlamp shot along the stone treads of the corner of the Spanish Stairs he could see between the houses. She came and rested her head on his shoulder:
"What you tinking about, Dickyboy?"
"Look, Anne Elizabeth, I've been wanting to talk about it . . . do you real y think that . . .?"
"It's more than two months now . . . It couldn't be anything else, and I have a little morning sickness now and then. I'd been feeling terrible today, only I declare seeing you's made me forget al about it."
"But you must realize . . . it worries me terribly. There must be something you can do about it."
"I tried castor oil and quinine . . . that's al I know
. . . you see I'm just a simple country girl."
"Oh, do be serious . . . you've got to do something. There are plenty of doctors would attend to it . . . I can raise the