Sit down, Jim. I’ll only be a minute,” she called in her clear, penetrating voice. But she didn’t hurry; she was deliberately keeping him waiting, and he knew it.. He sat down at a table near the door, picked up some paper lying on the table, took out his pencil, and drew until she broke away.
“I’m ashamed of myself, Catherine,” he said, jumping up apologetically. “How did it go?”
“They’re trying to tell me I did it with great talent and authority. What’s that?” she asked, reaching for his drawing. “Who’s it supposed to be? Why, it’s me! It’s good! Can I show it to the others?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m going to keep it anyway. Write something on it.”
Jim smiled and wrote, Madame Radio. “How’s that?”
“Just what I feel like,” she said, putting the drawing in her purse. Let’s get out of here. That producer is the quaintest little man. Aren’t radio people bewildering? In the woods too long. Sort of treed.”
“You mean bushed.”
“All right. I knew I had the wrong word.”
Going down in the elevator, she said, “Come on, Jim, tell me what made you late.”
“I was with Foley. The time passed so quickly.”
Outside, the snow was now two inches deep. “Look, isn’t it wonderful, Jim?” Catherine cried. “This is my time of year. When it’s like this I want to go to the mountains. I want to ski. Can you ski, Jim? It’s no good if you can’t ski. You didn’t say where you were with Foley, Jim.”
“Just across the street. We had a drink,” he said.
“Just across the street,” she repeated. “Was he that interesting, Jim?”
“Chuck is good company when he’s in a good mood.”
“I know all about Foley. You’ll say I don’t like him because my husband liked him. But really, Jim, why does he have to spend all his time with mugs and fighters and drunks? It’s a pose. I think he’s an awful fraud. I know people he went to school with. I know where he belongs and where he doesn’t. Has he a grudge against his own class because he couldn’t get along with his wife?”
“I don’t know. I’ll ask him. I know he has a pretty good feeling about people.” His head down against the snow, he glanced at her handsome leather snow boots. “It’s just as well you wore those boots, Catherine,” he said. “A girl with light pumps would get her feet soaking wet just crossing the road, wouldn’t she?”
“I suppose so. Why?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“You just don’t want to talk about Foley, do you?”
“I don’t mind talking about Foley.”
“Come on then, tell me what you talked about so long.”
“I don’t think it’ll make you like him any better.” He was irritated by her resentment of his friendship with Foley.
“I’ve told you, Jim, I think you waste your time hanging around with that Foley,” she said. “He’ll never do you any good in this town.”
“Won’t he?”
His tone, so quiet and withholding, startled her, and made her afraid of her own assertiveness. She felt him guarding himself against her. Oh, why did I sound like that when it’s not the way I feel? she thought. They walked close together in the snow, but they knew they were opposing each other. They knew they had come to a place where he could no longer be simply a man whose company she enjoyed. They had to become aware of each other in a new way and know how much of each other they could count on. Soon she may tell me not to see Foley at all, he thought. Am I not to have my own friends? I knew I couldn’t tell her about that girl. And Catherine, whose face was hidden in her turned-up fur collar, was reminded painfully of moments she had known with her husband. She couldn’t bear to turn and look at Jim and feel him guarding himself, and see that expression she had seen in her husband’s eyes.
“Oh, it’s too beautiful a night to worry about Foley, isn’t it, Jim?” she asked.
“I could walk for hours on a night like this,” he said.
“It’s exhilarating,” she said. And then she slipped and lurched against him, he held her up, they both laughed, and the bad moment was gone and they felt free and happy with each other.
The apartment house had many entrances that were like alcoves in a cloistered stone corridor. In a shadowed alcove he said, “Shall I come in, Catherine?”
“No, not now, Jim.”
“Well…”
“Well…” she said softly.
The alcove light touched one side of her expectant face, and as she moved her head from the light to the shadow the bold line of her face softened. She undid her coat; the folds fell away, the light touched her breast line, a shadow was at her waist where the belt gathered in the black dress tightly, and she waited, looking up at him. “I thought of our conversation this afternoon,” she said. “It kept going through my head. It’s a funny thing, Jim. Your words would keep getting mixed up with mine. I couldn’t remember what you had said, or what I had said, yet it was all there. A kind of sympathy. It was nice. Yes, new and nice.” Then the words trailed away.
“I know,” he said. “When I was crossing the street, you were in my mind like this.” He put his arms around her waist and he kissed her, but did not hold her hard against him. It was not a warm full kiss. When he released her she waited awkwardly, thinking: It was that one moment on the street. I felt it. He was resentful. It still bothers him. That’s all it is. He’s not like Steve. He really wants me. But her doubt showed in the way she lifted her head; he saw it, yet was afraid to hold her against him, afraid she would know his heart was not beating against hers, and know, too, that his mind was somewhere else, enchanted by a glimpse of something else. If he had only mentioned the girl it wouldn’t be like this.
“Everything has been going so well, hasn’t it?” he asked awkwardly.
“Going well, yes, Jim,” she said, still waiting.
“Of course a lot will depend on the luncheon with your father tomorrow.”
“It will go well, Jim.”
“I’m sure it will.”
“Well good night, Jim.”
“Good night, Catherine.”
“Phone me tomorrow,” she said, and she turned away swiftly.