Читать книгу Soldiers' Pay онлайн

62 страница из 88

Why didn’t I say something as I came in? Something easy and intimate? Listen, when I first saw you my love for you was like—my love was like—my love for you—God, if I only hadn’t drunk so much last night I could say it my love for you my love is love is like ... and found himself watching her arms as she moved and her loose sleeves fell away from them, saying, yes, he was glad the war was over and telling her that he had forty-seven hours’ flying time and would have got wings in two weeks more and that his mother in San Francisco was expecting him.

She treats me like a child, he thought with exasperation, seeing the slope of her shoulders and the place where her breast was.

‘How black your hair is,’ he said, and she said:

‘Lowe, when are you going home?’

‘I don’t know. Why should I go home? I think I’ll have to look at the country first.’

‘But your mother!’ She glanced at him.

‘Oh, well,’ he said largely, ‘you know what women are—always worrying you.’

‘Lowe! How do you know so much about things? Women? You—aren’t married, are you?’