her in a good price and were fun to do.
It was during their last meeting that she had discovered that the past wasn’t dead and that the feeling they had for each other, instead of weakening with time, had taken on a new fire and a depth that threatened to sweep them both off their feet.
It was she who had called the turn. The thing between herself and Steven was too fine for muddling, for shabbiness and intrigue and hypocrisy and deceit. Scraps and fragments weren’t of any use. There was no middle ground. It was all or nothing. It couldn’t be all. It had to be nothing. Steven was married and had a wife. You couldn’t do that to another woman. It wasn’t decent or honorable or fair.
As soon as she realized what had happened she had taken steps. She had been quite frank, keeping emotion out of it, on the surface, at any rate. She could go back and pick out the very bush in Central Park beside which she had halted when she said, “Look, Steve, you’d better go. Now. Yes, I admit it, I find myself liking you again too much, thinking about you too much for my own peace of mind. I thought it was gone, that I was—free. But I’m not. So will you…?”
Steven had said good-bye huskily, abruptly, after a short volcanic protest, and they had agreed not to meet again. It was over and the pain was beginning to recede, to dull just a little—and then he had asked her to meet him, and here she was.
Flight was still possible. Cristie glanced at the clock. He had said five and it was only just that. If she went now, quickly—she measured the distance to the street, and her heart took a leap, a leap that was half joy and half foreboding. Steve was coming toward her along the aisle, tall, wide-shouldered, with that familiar swing, cocked dark head at a go-to-hell angle, keen, steel-colored eyes alight in his long clever face.
He reached the table, paused beside it. “Cristie!”
His voice had a triumphant lift to it. It was forceful and eager and decisive. He threw himself down on the white leather cushions opposite, reached out and took her two hands in his. It wasn’t right, couldn’t lead anywhere but to pain and frustration and sorrow and regret: The blood tingled through Cristie’s veins, put a rose flush in her slender cheeks and a glow into the lovely eyes in pools of shadow made by the lashes. An electric fan blew a wisp of soft hair across her white forehead.
“Steve, what is it?” she demanded. “What’s happened?” Thoughts dashed helter-skelter through her mind. Was it something about Sara? What could it be?
Steven said, “I knew it would work out, Cristie. I knew there was a way. I’ve found it.”
Cristie caught her breath. “What way, Steve?”
Steven said, “If I take the Argentine laboratory, and Wilbur put it up to me directly this afternoon, yes or no, then don’t you see, Cristie…?”
Cristie didn’t see. Sara was still there, she was still between them. There was no international date-line on a marriage. You couldn’t get unmarried by crossing a border. “But, Steve, what about Sara?”
Lines etched themselves suddenly around Steven’s mouth. It lost its resilience; it was wry, a little sad. He said soberly, “Don’t worry, about Sara, Cristie. You don’t have to. That’s the point.”
Cristie withdrew her hands from his. She said stiffly, “But I do worry, Steven. I have to worry. You can’t get what you want by grabbing, by stealing from someone else, making someone else unhappy. You’re Sara’s husband, and Sara’s your wife. I’m a woman too. I wouldn’t want another woman to do that to me. It’s dishonest and greedy and unfair.”
Steven nodded. He reached for her cold fingers, imprisoned them in his. “I know what you mean, Cristie, but I don’t think you quite understand. God knows I tried to make a go of it with Sara, tried to make her happy. The whole thing was wrong from the beginning. I should never have married her. Once it was done, I did everything in my power to make our marriage a success. That sounds as though I’m excusing myself, but I’m not: It’s the truth.” His mouth took a grim twist.
Cristie looked at him. She didn’t say anything. Steven had always been a scrupulous person.
He went on, “Sara never loved me either. Whatever little feeling she had wore off after the first few months. She’s not happy with me. I can’t give her the things she wants, the only sort of life she really craves. She’s suggested herself, at least twice, that we call it a day. She was the one who mentioned the word ‘divorce’ first.”
A pulse in Cristie’s throat beat in and out. “Divorce!”
“Yes,” Steven said firmly, “divorce. She spoke of one a year ago. National Motors wanted me to take the Argentine laboratory then. It was the opportunity I was after. No engineer could ask for a better. The equipment’s tip-top. It would have given me a fine chance for experimental work. But Sara absolutely refused to go. She said she’d divorce me if I accepted the post, and now, well—don’t you see?”
This time Cristie did see. Her defenses began to crumble. If Sara didn’t love Steven, if she was willing to divorce him, wanted a divorce herself…
Steven leaned across the table. He was closer to her. His words came faster. “Don’t worry about Sara. Sara will agree. I know she will, like a shot, when I make my offer. She wouldn’t dream of leaving New York and her tight little world. She doesn’t care a snap of her fingers for me, doesn’t want anything from me except cold cash. It may be a little hard for us for a while, darling. Sara will demand everything. It will mean a commitment for big alimony. But it will be worth it. Think of it, Cristie. We can wipe out that miserable blunder we made three years ago. We can start over again.”
To start over again, with Steven, in South America. New horizons and a new existence—together. The thought of it shook Cristie almost unbearably. She lowered her lashes to hide the flame that had sprung up in her eyes, tried to drag herself back to sanity. There were a lot of obstacles to be surmounted. And yet…Steven’s voice was in her ears.
“Look at me, darling.”
Cristie raised her lashes slowly.
At the bar McKee turned. He glanced at the girl’s radiant face lifted to the man on the other side of the table. Strong emotion can be as tangible as a breeze, a shout. It was there in those two people. It hadn’t been there a moment before. He couldn’t hear what they were saying. He didn’t need to hear. We hold these truths to be self-evident.
Twenty feet away Steven Hazard was repeating softly, “So you see it’s going to be all right if—love me, Cristie?”
This time it was Cristie’s hands that found his. She touched the back of Steven’s with the tips of her fingers. “You know, don’t you?” she whispered.
There was no hesitation in her answer. But she was still not completely convinced. Could you ever go back and wipe out the past? Steven sensed her uncertainty, because he said with sudden iron in his voice, “You don’t know what my marriage is like. You don’t know it at all, Cristie. I’m not going to go into it. But we’re entitled to another chance, you and I. It isn’t as though I were welching on Sara. She doesn’t want me, doesn’t want any part of me. Our life together is over. If she gets money enough it will suit her down to the ground to let me go. That’s all I can tell you.”
His brooding gaze left Cristie for a moment, he was far away, enclosed in the shadows of a dark inward knowledge. He straightened his wide shoulders like a man shaking himself free of a physical weight. His eyes cleared. His muscles
