The chair legs skreeked on the floor. He did put his arm around her. She was soft and slender; her fine hair tickled his chin.. After a few moments, she gently pushed him away. "Have you got a kleenex -- I mean a tish?"
He handed her one; she blew her nose, dabbed at her eyes.
She tried to smile at him. "Don't look, I must look so awful." It was true -- her face was swollen and pink, her eyes swim-my, lips puffed -- and yet something ached yearningly in his chest. I'm falling in love, he thought incredulously.
He recognized the symptoms, although it had never happened to him before. Her features, which had seemed perfectly ordinary half an hour ago, were now unique. He saw that some of them were not particularly beautiful -- her ears, for instance -- but this simply gave him a feeling of pleasure and pride. Anybody could appreciate her obvious points; he loved everything about her.
Part of him was dismayed by these thoughts -- there was no sense nor reason in them -but the rest of him was happily conjuring up new ones, the more irrational, the better. Would he perform menial services for her? -- tend her when she was sick, bathe her, feed her, dress her? Yes, gladly. Would he give his life for her? He boggled at that one, but then a fresh wave of feeling took him: maybe he would. His next reaction was one of horror: love was a horrible thing if it could make you destroy yourself. But somehow the horror only added to his pleasure.
She said apologetically, "I haven't even thought about drugstores for years. It was just so unexpected." She looked around, biting her lip. "Carter's Little Liver Pills. Oh, my. And there's the fountain. I don't suppose it really works."
She was looking at the dingy marble counter with the stools in front and the mirror behind. "Works?" said Dick.
"I mean, we couldn't make an ice cream soda, or anything. But maybe there would be some water? I'm awfully thirsty."
"I'll see," Dick said, and got up quickly. There were two taps over a slotted metal plate, and he tried them both, but nothing came out. "No, it's dry." Behind the counter he saw a bottle in a half-open compartment, and picked it up. "Here's some ginger ale, though."
"Oh, that would be lovely."
He opened the bottle and used part of the contents to rinse out two glasses. Then he filled them and brought them to the table.
She made a little face. "It's flat, isn't it? But nice," she added quickly, and drank some more. She set the glass down. "I'm glad you found me. I recognized you right away -- and did I feel relieved!"
"You did?"
"Oh, yes. You have a very distinctive face. I always remember faces. Yours is so square and serious looking. And you have those bushy eyebrows that go up" -- she twirled a forefinger -- "at the corners." She was smiling at him, but her eyes were still hazy with tears. "I used to know a boy who had eyebrows like that"! His name was Jimmy Bowen. You remind me of him quite a bit."
Dick felt a curious glow of pleasure, and a stab of suspicion. "Where was that?"
"Back at Dunrovin -- Mr. Krasnow's estate. My father was the head of the greenhouse there. I don't suppose you ever heard of it; they say it isn't there any more." She looked melancholy again. "Jimmy and I wanted to get married, but Daddy thought he wasn't good enough for me. Then Mr. Sinescu came and saw me, and brought me back here. Of course, all this wasn't built then. There was just the one big building on top of the mountain." She shuddered delicately. "Mr. Crawford was going to marry me, they told me afterward; I think I must have guessed it, and that was what made me fall into my deep sleep."
"Sleep?" said Dick curiously. It was enough just to listen to her, but that word had jogged his attention.
"Why, didn't you know? It's the craziest thing -- I slept over seventy years! I don't believe it ever happened to a human before, but they say frogs do it. I didn't wake up till just, let's see, about three weeks ago. I couldn't believe it, till they showed me all this -- " She waved her hands; her eyes glittered with excitement, and her teeth gleamed white. "It was just like a dream."
"Then you mean they didn't dupe you?" Dick asked incredulously.
"Oh, no. They were going to, but I fell asleep first, and then they couldn't, you see. That was lucky; I wouldn't want to be duped, would you?"
Dick shook his head miserably. He saw it now: she thought she was the original Elaine; she refused to believe she was a dupe, and so she had invented this deep-sleep story and managed to convince herself it was true. There was something pathetic about it; it reminded him of what he had been trying to forget. This was the fourth Elaine. She was twenty years old, and the other three had all died at twenty-five.
This time it would be different, he told himself fiercely. The thing was, he didn't know what the others had died of: it might have been something to do with childbirth. Or it might be something she had now, without knowing -- something that could be cured, now, if anyone took the trouble.
At any rate, the chain was broken -- she was never going to marry Oliver. He would have to Improvise as he went along -- get her out of here somehow without running into the Guards, smuggle her out of Eagles ... and, he realized suddenly, probably off the continent. It wouldn't be safe to bring her home to buckhill, except perhaps years later ... He had a brief formless vision of his mother and father: But who are her people? Do you mean to say she is a dupe? A slave?
He shrugged the thought aside irritably. He couldn't stop to worry about that now, he had too much else on his mind. If only this damned irrational thing hadn't happened to him ... He had a mental glimpse of how it might have been -- his delivering the girl to the Household officials, being congratulated for discretion, perhaps by the Boss in person; preferment, honors, steps up the ladder -- planks in the wall that held Buckhill strong and safe.
Almost, he wavered. But he saw Elaine looking at him with her level green eyes; strange, strange, how there was always more meaning in her eyes than hi what she said; and he put all that behind him.
There was a scuffling noise at the door. He turned, heart jumping with alarm, but it was only the gargoyle, Frankie -- two of him, dressed in gray jumpers and carrying satchels.
He relaxed almost immediately. The Frankies were unarmed -- of course -- and no guards were coming into view behind them. They must have been sent into the vaults on some routine errand, perhaps to unearth some particular specimen for the Boss's display collections. Still, it seemed odd somehow, to meet anyone in this untenanted maze ... It was curious, too, how slowly they seemed to be coming forward, like figures under water. Their solemn expressions did not change, but bloomed toward him with a sort of incandescent meaning. Eyes, noses, mouths were as if lit from behind; Dick, forgetting who and where they were, could only stare at them in hopes of deciphering the riddle.
The last thing he heard was a sound that vaguely alarmed him, one that he had been half-noticing for some time; the steady hissing of escaping air.
18
He and Adam had drifted over the deepest part of the lake, and, for a dare, he had slipped over the side of the boat, down, down to the vaguely glimmering greenish bottom, weedy and dim. Now he was coming up, but it was a long way: he could see the bottom of the boat in a little circle of light, far overhead. It didn't seem to be getting any closer. He schooled himself to kick slowly and evenly. His hurting chest tried to breathe in spite of him; he tightened his jaw and pinched his nose between finger and thumb. There was a drumming in his ears ...