Читать книгу An Affair of State онлайн

24 страница из 86

"I know. I didn't. Other women don't have to take the State Department's nine o'clock conference."

"I don't understand."

"You don't? Put it this way. Lots of women won't have babies, nowadays, because they're afraid. They're afraid they'll lose them in another war. They're afraid babies will be killed in their cribs this year, or next year, or the year after. Right here, in Washington. In New York, and Pittsburgh, and Detroit and every other target city. Well, I don't want to have any more men, like other women don't want to have any more babies. I couldn't bear to lose another man."

Jeff Baker wondered whether it would be presumptuous for him to ask about Keller, and he decided it wouldn't be because she would understand it was necessary for him to know all he could know of her. "What about Fred Keller?" he said.

"I go out with him, very occasionally."

"That all?"

"That's all. He's a dear."

"You mean he doesn't make passes at you. That's what a woman means when she says a man's a dear."