"I wish you’d shut up", said Erica with sudden violence.
Miriam glanced at her quickly and after a pause she said, "I’m sorry, Eric".
"It’s all right. Do you want this orange? It’s all peeled".
"Don’t you want it?"
"No". She got up and gave it to Miriam, then went over to the window and sat down on the seat with her hands in the pockets of her jacket. She said, looking down at the toe of her shoe, "I have picked someone, only he hasn’t got the necessary qualifications-he came to a cocktail party here with René, and Charles refused to meet him".
"My God, what was he?" asked Miriam in amazement.
"A Jewish lawyer".
"Oh". She said as though she were reading aloud to herself, "Mr. and Mrs. Charles Sickert Drake announce the engagement of their daughter, Erica Elizabeth, to a Jewish lawyer…" She broke off and said, "Well, never mind, Eric, you can count on me anyhow. What’s he like?"
"He’s about six feet, with brown hair and eyes about the same color as mine, but they slant…"
"Upwards or downwards?" inquired Miriam with interest.
"Upwards, you ass!"
"That’s good. Otherwise I should think he’d have rather a droopy look-you know, like a bloodhound. Is he good-looking?"
"Not particularly, he’s just attractive. Nice shoulders and no hips. His skin is dark enough so that he won’t look as though he’s come out from under a stone the first time he goes swimming-you know, that sort of golden skin that’s very smooth…".
"How many times have you met this guy?"
"Just twice".
"I must say you notice a lot", said Miriam admiringly. "And what sort of person is René?"
"Thirty-four, dark, aquiline, slightly satirical, very intelligent and very Catholic".
"Very Quebec Catholic?"
"I don’t know. We usually try to stay off the subject. I somehow can’t quite see René with twelve children, but you never can tell. We might invite ourselves there for dinner tomorrow night. Mary’s going to be out".
"For heaven’s sake let’s get ourselves invited somewhere, then".
"You’d better leave out the part about Tony ’having the time of his life’ when you’re talking to Madeleine and René. Madeleine still has too many illusions about Tony and René hasn’t enough. I suppose there’s someone else in the picture?" she asked.
"Well, there was for a while anyhow. I don’t know whether it’s still going on or not, and if it is, how much it means to Tony or how far it goes. She was certainly nuts about him, at any rate. I ran into them together a couple of times".
"So here’s Madeleine", said Erica, "having a baby in August and saying ’Of course Tony’s always hated writing letters, and anyhow he’s so busy, and besides there are so many sinkings that we’re not getting half the English mails…’." She said furiously, "I could break his bloody neck!"
Miriam said calmly, "You can’t imagine the sort of life he leads now, Eric. These are such extraordinary circumstances…" she began and stopped, confused by the sheer inanity of her own remark. "Anyhow, Madeleine doesn’t need to know anything about it", she added at last.
They were silent for a while and then Erica said idly, "John Gardiner’s been phoning practically every day for the last month to see if you’d got here yet…".
"Good Old Faithful", said Miriam. "Is he still strong and silent and full of ideals?"
"I guess so", said Erica, uncomfortably. The description, while recognizable, did not strike her as quite just, although there was no doubt that so far as his attitude toward Miriam was concerned, John was certainly too full of ideals for his own good. Erica had had to spend a good many evenings off and on during the past eight years, listening to John on the subject of Miriam, and half the time he had sounded as though he were talking about someone else. Or so she had thought, but now Erica was beginning to wonder. It was possible that he had not been so far off the track after all. Unlike the rest of them, he had never regarded Miriam as impervious: unlike Charles and Margaret Drake he had never believed that Miriam had divorced Peter Kingsley "for no really good reason"; John had said over and over again that Miriam was altogether too vulnerable, that her emotions were likely to run away with her, that her ex-husband had given her a "raw deal"-Erica did not know exactly how John had worked that out for himself-and that what Miriam needed was someone to look after her. All of which, Erica reflected, might turn out to be true after all.
"How is he?" asked Miriam, turning her head toward the door again as the telephone rang.
"He’s still mad about being sent back from England just because he’s bilingual. Apparently they’re short of bilingual officers".
Miriam finished her second orange and then asked suddenly, "Why don’t you tell him what I’m really like, Eric? He still thinks I’m some kind of superfatted angel. After all this time, he deserves a break".
"Maybe he knows", said Erica.
There was a knock on the door and Mary said, "The telephone’s for you, Miss Miriam-a Mr. Eliot. I called you but I guess you didn’t hear me…"
Miriam was off the bed and out the door before Mary had finished her sentence.
From the window Erica said resignedly, "I’ll be alone for dinner after all, Mary".
"Yes, Miss Drake", she said, and then added vaguely, "but it’s only a quarter past six and maybe something will turn up".
"At a quarter past six?" asked Erica. "Well, maybe". She got up from the window-seat, wandered about for a while after Mary had gone, then decided she would kill the next half-hour by taking a bath.
When the telephone rang again she did not hear it; she was cold-creaming her face in her bathroom with both taps running.
"Miss Drake…"
"Yes, Mary?"
"You’re wanted on the phone". As Erica opened the door Mary said happily, "It’s a gentleman, Miss Drake. I told you something would turn up".
Erica went off down the hall to her mother’s room to answer. By the time she got there, she had succeeded in convincing herself that it could not possibly be Marc, and that it was probably someone from the Post. Thus fortified against the inevitable let-down, she picked up the phone, sat down on the edge of her mother’s bed and said, "Hello?"
"Hello, this is Marc Reiser-you know, the guy you only managed to get rid of three hours ago".
"Yes, hello", said Erica, taking a firmer grip on the phone.
"I’m in my office".
He did not seem to know where to go from there so she said, "What are you doing in your office at this hour?"
"I don’t seem to be doing anything much but sit here wondering why in hell I asked you out to dinner next Wednesday when it’s still…" He paused, evidently counting, and went on, "…almost five days off. Look", he said hurriedly, "I know it’s awfully late notice but… Oh, Good Lord!"
"Now what?" Erica wanted to know.
"I forgot about your sister".
"My sister has already forgotten about me", said Erica, "so that makes us even".
"Do you mean you can have dinner with me tonight?"
"I’d love to".
"There’s some kind of ghastly affair at the mess and I’m supposed to put in an appearance-do you mind if we drop in for a while later on?"
"I don’t mind a bit".
"We don’t have to stay long. Is it all right if I pick you up about seven-thirty?"
"Yes, that’s fine", said Erica in a tone which was admirably matter-of-fact, she thought, under the circumstances.