I turned on the light. She dropped down on a little sofa that faced the bed, curling her legs under her. She had put on eyeshadow and more lipstick for a femme fatale effect. It didn’t come off. She just looked pretty and young and slightly absurd.
She said: “I don’t suppose you have a drink?”
“No drink.”
“Then a cigarette?”
I found a package, passed it to her and flicked my lighter. She took my hand as she lit the cigarette and went on holding it. She looked up at me with her trick of half closing her lids. That was overdone, too.
She said: “Girls do this with play producers to get launched on Broadway, don’t they?”
“In the movies.”
“Only in the movies?”
She pulled at my hand. I let myself be drawn down. She slid her arms around my shoulders and kissed me on the mouth. Although she tried to make it rough and experienced, there was a sweet girlish flavour to her lips and a freshness to the faint perfume. It would have been rather touching if it hadn’t seemed so contrived. She was trembling, too. It was that unconvincing.
When she was through kissing me, I said: “What’s your trouble? Want to get launched on Broadway, too?”
“No,” she said sharply. “No, of course not.”
“Then why—this?”
“Why not?”
“Among other things, I’m a happily married man.”
Her face was still close to mine. “Is anyone happily married?”
“I’m afraid that’s too cosmic a question for me.”
She said: “I came because I wanted to. Because I like you.”
“You go to the room of every man you like?”
She flared: “Maybe I don’t like many people.”
I got up. She lay on the couch, the silver hair gleaming, her red lips parted, her eyes watching me, half angry, half uneasy.
I said. “Why don’t you come out from behind the Mata Hari and tell me the truth?”
“The truth? What truth?”
“What your game is.”
She jumped up. “I’m not going to stay here and be insulted.”
“Then go back to your own room.”
“No.” The glamour pose collapsed. Her shoulders sagged. She was frankly just a young, frightened girl with too much make-up now. “No.”
I put my hands on her arms and tried to make my voice paternal. “Listen. I’m not an ogre. If you want help, you don’t have to give your all. I’ll help you. For free.”
She said stubbornly: “I don’t need help. Why should I?”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Why shouldn’t you believe it?”
“I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Don’t be silly. No one was. Only babies.”
“In the first place, you lied to me about missing the sightseeing car.”
She was ready for that. “I know. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I thought it had left.”
“In the second place, you were scared of every car that followed us. The bus. And then later, when Mrs. Snood drove up, you ducked into the store to hide.”
“No, I didn’t. I wanted a coke.”
“You didn’t drink it.”
“I changed my mind.”
“And you’re frightened of someone here. I’m almost sure. Who is it?”
“I’m not frightened of anyone.”
“Just now I thought I saw a man hanging around your window. Is that why you’re afraid?”
She stamped her foot in a little-girl show of temper. “I’ve told you I’m not afraid of anyone or anything. Why do you have to make such a drama? Is it the play producer coming out?”
“Okay,” I said. “If you want it that way, you’re not afraid. It’s none of my business. But I have a right to know one thing. How do I fit in the picture?”
Her silver-grey eyes moved to my face. She blurted:
“Please, let me spend the night here.”
“Why?”
“There are two beds. I won’t be a nuisance. I promise I won’t be a nuisance.”
It was ridiculous to suspect a frame-up. This was the Mexican jungle, not Times Square.
I stalled: “It’s not the usual procedure for a man to offer a bed to a girl when she has a perfectly good bed of her own.”
“Do things always have to be usual?”
“Unless there’s a good reason why they shouldn’t be.”
She was still looking at me earnestly. Suddenly her lips started to tremble.
“I’ll tell you the truth. I did lie. I am afraid.”
“That’s better.”
“There in the room alone, with the darkness and the jungle outside and the noises, it’s terrible. I don’t know why. It frightens me. It…. Oh, I didn’t want you to know. It’s so babyish. I hate people to know I’m babyish.”
It occurred to me that a girl who had lived with an archæologist father, trailing through the hinterland of Peru, should by now have grown used to jungle nights. Certainly, making love to a strange man was an elaborate way of finding companionship. But she might just be telling the truth. People don’t make sense anyway.
“Please,” she was saying—“please let me stay. Please don’t make me go back to that room.”
I knew I was probably letting myself in for something I would regret, but I didn’t want to send her off alone to be afraid—even if the danger was nothing more than a lonely dark room. I liked her. That was my trouble.
“Okay.” I gestured to the other bed. “It’s all yours.”
She smiled a vivid smile of gratitude. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Any time, I’m sure.”
She kicked off her mules, found the opening in the mosquito netting and climbed into the other bed. I could see her blurred silhouette through the netting, lying on her back, her hair shining against the pillow. It was like a still from an early Von Sternburg movie.
Outside in the jungle a bird, probably one of those who were waiting for their lovers, groaned lugubriously. I turned off the light.
There was darkness and silence. Suddenly she said: “I hate guides. Let’s get up early and see the ruins before the tour begins.”
“I’m a dope,” I said. “I need instruction.”
“I know all about it. I’ll be your guide.”
“Okay.”
“You’re very kind.”
“Aren’t I?”
“I’m terribly grateful.”
“I’m glad.”
For several minutes the silence was unbroken. I heard her sigh and turn over. Then, in a queer little voice as if she was almost asleep, she murmured: “Birds on the road. Waiting for their lovers.”
“Yes,” I said.
She mumbled drowsily something that sounded like “Joan of Arc crowned him in 1462.”
“Crowned who?” I asked.
She sighed again. “My uncle.”
“That must have been nice for him.”
“It was. A new Joan of Arc,” she whispered. “But don’t tell anyone. Ever. It’s a secret.”
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Wunnerful. Goo’night, sweet prince, and flights of angels….”
The words turned into a grunt of satisfaction and there was no more gibberish. I was pretty sure then that she was asleep. She was young enough to be able to do that, to fall asleep without care like an animal.
Sometime, not much later, I fell asleep myself.