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eyelashes and her unusual green eyes. "I'm sorry it happened that way," she said quietly. "I wish it could have been different." "It could have beea different," he insisted. "In. fact, 46 it could still be different now. I could take you to dinner tonight, and we could make up for Saturday night three times over." She reached out and held his hand. Her fingers felt Varm and slender, and her grip was firm. "Gene," she said plainly, "I want to tell you that you're one of the most attractive men I've ever met. I like you more than you'll ever understand. That, and only that, is the reason why I won't go out with you." He shook his head in bewilderment. "I thought po-litical logic was screwy enough," he told her. "But I just don't grasp what you're saying. Are you frightened of getting too serious? Is that it? Are you worried about your own feelings?" "No," she said softly. "It's nothing like that." "Then what is it? For Christ's sake, Lorie, you have " to tell me." She simply said, "I can't." He didn't know what else he could do to convince ten They stood side by side on the sunlit sidewalk until the doors of the Franco-African Bank were unlocked from the inside and opened, and then she touched his arm just once and walked in, "Lorie," he said as she went. She paused, but didn't look back. He knew what h& wanted to tell her, but he didn't lave the words to explain what he felt, so he just turned away and walked off down K Street, his hands jammed in his coat pockets and his head bent. The girl \vith the upswept glasses tittered as he went off, until the girl with the gum said "Ssshhh," and hurried her into-the bank. He didn't really surprise himself .when he finally came to the conclusion that he was going to have tp 47 sneak over the wall of the Semple estate and check the place out. It was the kind of blunt, straightforward thinking that had won him his job with the State Department, and particular favor with the Kennedy camp. His answer to every sensitive and puzzling diplomatic dilemma was to "get straight hi there and find out what the hell's going on." He was an uncomplicated thinker, but he was also a methodical man with a talent for detail, and he reckoned he could execute a one-man commando raid on the Semple estate with such precision that he could get in and out of the grounds without anyone ever knowing he was there. All he wanted to do was look over the house and the ground and hopefully gather one or two clues about Lorie Semple's stubborn insistence that any kind of romance between them was out of the question. Page 21 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Ever since Monday morning, Lorie had become an increasingly alluring obsession. He knew how adolescent his infatuation was, but there was nothing he could do to get her out of his mind. He doodled her name on his blotting pad, and even tried to sketch pictures of her face. And what made it worse was the way that her words kept coursing through his mind. / want to tell you that you're one of the most attractive men I've ever met, I like you more than you'll ever understand. "You," said Maggie, setting a styrofoam cup of coffee down on his desk, "have got it bad." "Got what bad?" he said. "The dreaded Lorie Semples. A disease known to modern medical science as rampant puppy love. That's what." He sipped his coffee and scalded his lip. "I deny it categorically," he told her. "And apart 48 from that, how can anyone of thirty-two suffer from puppy love?" "Don't ask me," she said with a shrug. "Just ask the person who wrote Lorie Semple twenty-four times oa your best blotting paper." "You expect me to use that cheap purple stuff, for her!" Maggie sat down and leaned confidingly on his desk. "Come on, Gene," she said quietly, "why don't you admit it? I haven't seen you like this for years." He sipped some more coffee. "All right, I admit it. She's stuck in my mind and I can't get her out. It's the ridiculous way that she says she likes me, and at the same time says we can never go out together. It's driving me crazy, if you must know." "What are you going to do about it?" she asked. He sat there for a while, drinking his coffee in quick, burning mouthfuls, trying to make up his mind whether he ought to tell her or not. In the end, he decided in favor. Maggie's thinking was always level and logical, and always sympathetic, too. "I'm working out a plan," he said slowly, "I want to break into the Semple estate." Maggie sat back. "You're working out a plan to .do what!" "Maggie," he said, "I've got to know. Breaking in there, finding out for myself, that's the only way. I've got to see what it is that makes her so reluctant, t mean, maybe it's her mother. .Maybe the old girl's crippled, and Lorie doesn't want to get herself involved with anyone who's going to take her away from nursing her." "Gene, you're out of your mind. Supposing you get caught?" 49 He shook his head. "Not a hope. I've worked it out that I can get in there, snoop around a little, and get out again with no problems." "There are dogs. Dogs as big as this. You said so yourself." "Even dogs as big as that get thrown off by gas. Tm going to take a few of those sprays that mail carriers use. It's suppose to stun them for long enough to take a letter up someone's drive, and that will be long enough for me." "What about the chauffeur, Mathieu?" "He won't even know I'm there. In case he does find out, I'm taking a .38. I won't use it, of course, but if he's such a kravmaga expert, I'd prefer to have something to wave around in self-defense." Maggie sat there biting her lip for a long time. "Can I persuade you not to do it?" she asked after a while. "I don't think so. I've made up my mind." "Even though it might ruin your career?" He reached for a cigarette. "It won't do that, even if I'm caught red-handed. All I have to say is that I was paying her a visit, and that the .Semples mistakenly took me for a prowler. Christ, Maggie, I'm not going to burglarize the place. I'm only going to take a quick look around the grounds and maybe a fast check through the windows." "You're paying a visit? At night? With a loaded gun?" "Maggie, you're just making things sound awkward. All I'm going to do is hop Page 22 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html over the wall. The place is enormous, they'll never see me." She thought for a moment longer, and then she stood up. "You really fell head over heels this time, didn't you?" 50 He looked up. "And what's wrong with that? It's about time there was more committed passion in life, anyway." "You're probably right," Maggie said. "But it depends where it's directed, don't you think?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |