Glory Road Read Online Free Page B

look away. Her eyes were so deep a blue that they were dark, darker than my own brown eyes.
    I said huskily, “ Pardonnez-moi, ma’m’selle ,” and managed to tear my eyes away.
    She answered, in English, “Oh, I don’t mind. Look all you please,” and looked me up and down as carefully as I had inspected her. Her voice was a warm, full contralto, surprisingly deep in its lowest register.
    She took two steps toward me and almost stood over me. I started to get up and she motioned me to stay seated, with a gesture that assumed obedience as if she were very used to giving orders. “Rest where you are,” she said. The breeze carried her fragrance to me and I got goose flesh all over. “You are American.”
    “Yes.” I was certain she was not, yet I was equally certain she was not French. Not only did she have no trace of French accent but also—well, French women are at least slightly provocative at all times; they can’t help it, it’s ingrained in the French culture. There was nothing provocative about this woman—except that she was an incitement to riot just by existing.
    But, without being provocative, she had that rare gift for immediate intimacy; she spoke to me as a very old friend might speak, friends who knew each other’s smallest foibles and were utterly easy tête-à-tête. She asked me questions about myself, some of them quite personal, and I answered all of them, honestly, and it never occurred to me that she had no right to quiz me. She never asked my name, nor I hers—nor any question of her.
    At last she stopped and looked me over again, carefully and soberly. Then she said thoughtfully, “You are very beautiful,” and added, “ Au ’voir ”—turned and walked down the beach into the water and swam away.
    I was too stunned to move. Nobody had ever called me “handsome” even before I broke my nose. As for “beautiful!”
    But I don’t think it would have done me any good to have chased her, even if I had thought of it in time. That gal could swim.

Chapter 3
    THREE
    I stayed at the plage until sundown, waiting for her to come back. Then I made a hurried supper of bread and cheese and wine, got dressed in my G-string and walked into town. There I prowled bars and restaurants and did not find her, meanwhile window-peeping into cottages wherever shades were not drawn. When the bistros started shutting down, I gave up, went back to my tent, cursed myself for eight kinds of fool—(why couldn’t I have said, “What’s your name and where do you live and where are you staying here ?”)—sacked in and went to sleep.
    I was up at dawn and checked the plage , ate breakfast, checked the plage again, got “dressed” and went into the village, checked the shops and post office, and bought my Herald-Trib .
    Then I was faced with one of the most difficult decisions of my life: I had drawn a horse.
    I wasn’t certain at first, as I did not have those fifty-three serial numbers memorized. I had to run back to my tent, dig out a memorandum and check—and I had! It was a number that had stuck in mind because of its pattern: #XDY 34555. I had a horse!
    Which meant several thousand dollars, just how much I didn’t know. But enough to put me through Heidelberg… if I cashed in on it at once. The Herald-Trib was always a day late there, which meant the drawing had taken place at least two days earlier—and in the meantime that dog could break a leg or be scratched nine other ways. My ticket was important money only as long as “Lucky Star” was listed as a starter.
    I had to get to Nice in a hurry and find out where and how you got the best price for a lucky ticket. Dig the ticket out of my deposit box and sell it!
    But how about “Helen of Troy”?
    Shylock with his soul-torn cry of “Oh, my daughter! Oh, my ducats!” was no more split than I.
    I compromised. I wrote a painful note, identifying myself, telling her that I had been suddenly called away and pleading with her either to wait