was the one telling himself he was dreaming. And in truth, much as he loved Marchent, he didn,t want to be married yet to anybody. But the book, maybe he could do the book, and Marchent might cooperate in such a venture, even if she herself went off again to her house in South America. Maybe it would bind them together, deeply, as good friends and fine friends, and that would be something of great value to them both.
He went out of the room and walked about for a while, on the second floor.
He went down the north hallway on the back of the house.
Many doors stood open, and he found himself peering into several little libraries and galleries much like the one he,d just left. More ancient clay tablets. Ah, this took his breath away. More figurines, and even some parchment scrolls. He was fighting himself not to touch.
There were more of the beautifully appointed bedrooms off the east hallway, one with dazzling black-and-gold Oriental wallpaper, and another papered in stripes of red and gold.
Circling back eventually, he was again on the west side of the house. He stood for a moment on the threshold of what was obviously Marchent,s bedroom, one door above Felix,s bedroom, a haven of white lace curtains and bed trimming, noting her clothes in a heap at the foot of the bed. But Marchent was nowhere around.
He wanted to go up to the attic. There was a staircase at either end of the western hall. But he had no leave to go exploring up there, and so he didn,t. And he didn,t open closed doors, though he wanted to do that very much too.
He loved the house. He loved the twin candlelike sconces, the thick wooden crown moldings everywhere, and the dark wooden baseboards and heavy brass-handled doors.
Where was the lady of the house?
He went downstairs.
He heard her voice before he saw her. From the kitchen, he saw her in an adjacent office, amid fax machines or copy machines, computer monitors and mountains of clutter, talking on a landline phone in a low voice.
He didn,t want to eavesdrop, and in truth, he couldn,t really make out what she was saying. She wore a white negligee now, something very soft, with layers of lace and pearls, it seemed, and her smooth straight hair shimmered like satin in the light.
He felt a stab of desire that was painful, just looking at her hand as it held the receiver of the phone, and seeing the light on her forehead.
She turned, saw him, and smiled, gesturing for him to wait.
He turned and went away.
The old woman Felice was going through the big house and turning off the lights.
The dining room was already dark when he came back through it, and he saw that the fire had been scattered and was no more than embers. The rooms up front appeared to be in total darkness now. And he could see the old woman moving down the hall, reaching for the switches of the sconces one by one.
At last she passed him on her way back to the kitchen, and this room she plunged into total darkness as well. She went on out then, without a word to Marchent, who was still talking, and Reuben went on back up the stairs.
A small lamp burned on a table in the upstairs hallway. And there was light coming from Marchent,s open bedroom door.
He sat down at the top of the stairs, with his back to the wall. He figured he would wait for her and surely she would come up soon.
He knew suddenly he,d do everything in his power to get her to sleep the night with him, and he grew impatient wanting to hold her, kiss her, feel her in his arms. It had been powerfully exciting to sleep with her simply because she was new to him and so very different, yet soft and yielding and utterly self-confident and frankly much more passionate than he,d ever known Celeste to be. She didn,t seem like an older woman in any particular way. He knew she was, of course, but her flesh had been firm and sweet, and she,d been a little less muscular than Celeste.
These struck him as crude thoughts; he didn,t like these thoughts. He thought of her voice and her eyes and he loved her. He figured Celeste would probably understand. Celeste after all had been unfaithful to him with her old boyfriend twice. She,d been very candid about