'Poor Bob!'
His sole discomfort was that he could not invent a sufficiently
ingenious explanation of his call. You can't tell a woman you've called
to make love to her, and when your previous call happens to have been
ten years ago, some kind of an explanation does seem to be demanded.
Ultimately, as Annie was so very pleased to see him, so friendly, so
feminine, so equal to the occasion, he decided to let his presence in
her abode that night stand as one of those central facts in existence
that need no explanation. And they went on talking and eating till the
dusk deepened and Annie lit the gas and drew the blind.
He watched her on the sly as she moved about the room. He decided that
she did not appear a day older. There was the same plump, erect figure,
the same neatness, the same fair skin and fair hair, the same little
nose, the same twinkle in the eye--only perhaps the twinkle in the eye
was a trifle less cruel than it used to be. She was not a day older.
(In this he was of course utterly mistaken; she was ten years older,
she was thirty-three, with ten years of successful commercial
experience behind her; she would never be twenty-three again. Still she
was a most desirable woman, and a woman infinitely beyond his deserts.)
Her air of general capability impressed him. And with that there was
mingled a strange softness, a marvellous hint of a concealed wish to
surrender.... Well, she made him feel big and masculine--in brief, a
man.
He regretted the lost ten years. His present way of life seemed
intolerable to him. The new heaven opened its gate and gave glimpses of
paradise. After all, he felt himself well qualified for that paradise.
He felt that he had all along been a woman's man, without knowing it.
'By Jove!' his thought ran. 'At this rate I might propose to her in a
week or two.'