The Goddess Abides: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

this impulse, for until now she had only to be on guard against others, her own fastidiousness—coldness, Arnold had sometimes called it, when he was angry with her—until now had been her weapon. In her own being she had known she was not cold, withdrawn perhaps into a space which she had never shared with anyone, an inner space.
    “I’m back, as you see,” he repeated.
    “No luck in finding a room?”
    “I didn’t try,” he said, unlacing his boots.
    “I’m rather glad,” she said. “It makes me feel a part of life on the mountain.”
    “You’ve never skied?”
    “Oh, yes, I loved it when I was young.”
    “It’s not too late, you know.”
    “I’m afraid it is.”
    “Nonsense! You look—about twenty-five, say!”
    She laughed. “Add ten years and then another seven. I’m forty-two!”
    “No!”
    “Yes!”
    “Never mention it again,” he commanded. He rose and went toward the door to the guest room. “I’ll just wash up a bit, brush my hair—”
    “Everything is ready,” she said.
    He paused. “You expected me?”
    “I hoped.”
    They exchanged a look and he went into the room and closed the door. And she stood, uncertain. Should she change her dark green wool suit? But if she did, would he suspect her of some absurd coquetry? She decided not to change and was glad, half an hour later, for he sat down and began eating with self-assurance and in a silence that was almost ingratitude, she thought. He was only young, she decided, watching him—young and very hungry. It would be absurd to change into her long red dress—or the black one trimmed in silver, merely for this greedy boy.
    “How long are you staying on the mountain?” she asked at last, to break the silence. No, she was ready for him to leave, her pride wounded, remembering the foolish impulse she had resisted.
    “I must go back tomorrow,” he said. “I have a job in a laboratory. Well, it’s more than that. It’s an opportunity—a chance at last to invent, to discover—do something on my own, perhaps—Brinstead Electronics.”
    “A fine firm,” she said.
    “You know it?”
    “My father was a sort of consultant.”
    “I wish I’d known him!”
    “He died long before you were old enough to know him.”
    The words stung her heart with a sudden wounding of her selfhood. When he had been born she was already out of childhood, a girl quarreling with her patient mother over the length—or shortness—of skirts and defending her right to come home after midnight when she was out with Arnold.
    “The whole world knew him,” he was saying.
    “I suppose so.”
    Why was it difficult to talk? She felt depressed and apart, almost hostile to him because he was so young. Yet last night the conversation had flowed between them, easily and with understanding. She lifted her head involuntarily and realized that she had done so because he was staring at her, his eyes very dark under his brows. When their eyes met he spoke abruptly.
    “I like you. Not just because you’re beautiful, either. I’m used to that sort of thing. The girl I’m going with is pretty enough. But you have something—”
    He broke off and she made herself laugh.
    “Age—that’s all!”
    He did not reply with laughter. Instead he spoke almost with irritation. “I wish you wouldn’t talk about age! I’m ashamed of being—foolishly young. I’ve always been too young for what I wanted to do—too young to go to college, too young for a job. I ran away when I was fifteen, just to pass the time until I was older. I finished college too young. I’ve always done everything too young.”
    “Where did you run?”
    “I traveled—loafed would be better—around the world for two years.”
    “So now you’re—”
    “Twenty-four.”
    She stabbed herself again. “Tell me about your girl.”
    He frowned and turned his head toward the window. Over the rim of the mountain a slim new moon hung suspended, a decoration in the sky.
    “She’s not my girl