"Devotedly," Ephraim assured her. He tried to put his arm around her.
Still suspicious, Mr. Gorgeous bit him again. Mr. Gorgeous, Ephraim
could see, was going to be a problem.
His mind continued to probe the situation as he drove. Things had come
to a pretty pass when a nation this size was insolvent, when out-go
and deficit spending so far exceeded current revenue, taxes had become
confiscatory. There was mismanagement somewhere. There were too many
feet under the table. Too many were eating too high off the hog.
Perhaps what Congress needed was some of the spirit of '76 and '89. A
possible solution of his own need for a job occurred to him. "How," he
asked Gertie, "would you like to be the wife of a Congressman?"
"I think we have a flat tire," she answered. "Either that, honey, or
one of the wheels isn't quite round on the bottom."
* * * * *
She walked Mr. Gorgeous while he changed the tire. It was drizzling by
the time they got back in the car. Both the cowl and the top leaked.
A few miles past Bear Mountain, it rained. It was like riding in a
portable needle-shower. All human habitation blotted out by the rain,
the rugged landscape was familiar to Ephraim. He'd camped under that
great oak when it had been a young tree. He'd fought on the crest of
that hill over-looking the river. But what in the name of time had he
been fighting for?
He felt a new wave of tenderness for Gertie. This was the only world
the child had ever known. A world of video and installment payments,
of automobiles and war, of atom bombs and double-talk and meaningless
jumbles of figures. A world of confused little men and puzzled, barren,
women.
"I love you, Gertie," he told her.
She wiped the rain out of her eyes and smiled at him. "I love you,
too. And it's all right with me to go on. But I think we'd better stop
pretty soon. I heard Mr. Gorgeous sneeze and I'm afraid he's catching
cold."
_Damn Mr. Gorgeous_, Ephraim thought. Still, there was sense in what
she said. The rain was blinding. He could barely see the road. And
somewhere he'd made a wrong turning. They'd have to stop where they
could.
The hotel was small and old and might once have been an Inn. Ephraim
got Gertie inside, signed the yellowed ledger, and saw her and Mr.
Gorgeous installed in a room with a huge four poster bed before going
back for the rest of the luggage.
A dried-up descendant of Cotton Mather, the tobacco chewing proprietor
was waiting at the foot of the stairs when he returned sodden with rain
and his arms and hands filled with bags.
"Naow, don't misunderstand me, Mr. Hale," the old witch-burner said,
"I don't like t' poke m' nose intuh other people's business. But I run
a respectable hotel an I don't cater none t' fly-b'-nights or loose
women." He adjusted the glasses on his nose. "Y' sure y' an' Mrs. Hale
are married? Y' got anythin' t' prove it?"
Ephraim counted to ten. Then still half-blinded by the rain dripping
from the brim of his Homburg he set the bags on the floor, took an
envelope from his pocket, selected a crisp official paper, gave it
to the hotel man, picked up the bags again and climbed the stairs to
Gertie.
She'd taken off her wet dress and put on a sheer negligee that set
Ephraim's pulse to pounding. He took off his hat, eased out of his
sodden coat and tossed it on a chair.
"Did I ever tell you I loved you?"