"The Sphinx" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

"You're a virgin?" he asked.
She lifted her chin and looked at him, and he caught the same aloof self-possession in her eyes that he had seen when she first walked into the Schirra's party.
"If that's what you want to call it," she said.
He was flustered. "I didn't mean to call it anvthirig; It just kind of surprised me."
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ЂHe pulled a face. "Well. . . yes, I guess it is. Some-low you don't expect it. It's just that . . . well, you don't..."
"I don't look like a virgin?"
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to. You've been telling me how sexy you think I am from the moment you first said hello. If you think I'm sexy, you must think I sleep With men."
"That's not true at all. When T say you're sexy, I inean that you have a direct sensual effect on me personally. When I look at you, when I'm near you, I'm sexually aroused. Now, that's a compliment, not an ia-sult, and I wish you'd take it for what it is."
Lone said nothing. He thought at first that he'd successfully offended her, but when he glanced across at her again he saw that she was sitting there with a tiny, amused smile on her face.
"Jesus Christ," he said, "you're the strangest girl I ever met. And I've met some strange ones."
She laughed. Then she pointed ahead to Mathieu's car and said, "You'd better watch the road. We're almost there."
They were four or five miles out of the city center now, in a leafy and expensive suburb of ante-bellum houses with pillared porches and white-painted shutters. Mathieu turned off at a narrow, winding side road that led them upward through a tunnel of overhanging trees, and soon they were driving alongside a high wall of mature brick, overgrown with moss and creepers and topped with rows of long, rusty spikes.
"That's the wall of our garden," said Lorie. "The louse is just around here."
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They turned a sharp corner, and then Mathieu's Irake lights glared. They stopped. They were parked in a semi-circular driveway thai led up to a pair ol high-wrought-iron gates. Beyond the gates Gene could see a freshly graveled, private road that led away into the gloom, but the house was obviously set too far back to be seen from the road.
Mathieu didn't leave his car, but sat there with his engine s'till turning over, watching them in his rear-view mirror. The plume of exhaust rose from the back of his limousine into the.rainy night
"Is this the end of the line? Chez Semple?" Gene asked.
"That's right," Lorie said, tying up the string of hef cape.
"You mean I just drop you here and that's it?"
She looked at him with those green, feline eyes. "What did you expect? You offered to drive me home, and now you've driven me home."
"I don't even get invited in for a mug of Ovaltine?"
She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'd like to, but jnother hasn't been too well."

"I'm not going to ask her to make it.**
"Make what?"
"The Ovaltine, of course. She can stay in bed if sho likes."
Lorie reached out and touched the back of his hand.
"Gene," she said, "you're very sweet, and I like you——"
"But you're not going to invite me in. All right, I get the picture."
"It's not that."
He raised his hands in mode-surrender. "I know •what it is and what it isn't," he said. "You're a lovely young girl with, a close-knit family, and you've always
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done everything with Momma's approval, in the right, old-fashioned way. Well, suppose I said that's all right by me."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning Til call on you tomorrow at some respectable hour, present myself to your mother, and ask if I can take you out for lunch. I will even undertake to return you, unraped, before dusk."
She stared at him for a long moment, and then slowly shook her head.
"Gene," she said, "it's impossible.'*
"What's impossible about lunch?"
She turned away. "I like you," she said. "That's •what's impossible about lunch."
"You like me, so you won't go out with me? What kind of logic is that?"
She opened the door of the car. "Gene," she said softly, "I really think it's better if you just forget you ever met me. Please—for your own sake. I don't want you to get hurt."
Gene rubbed his neck in exasperation. "Lorie," he told her, "I'm really old enough to look after myself. I may not be an expert in Israeli kung-fu, but I've been through enough emotional experiences to have a certain protective coating of scar tissue. If I backed away from every potential relationship just because I thought I was going to get hurt—Jesus, I'd end up a virgin, just like you."
"Gene, please."
"It's all very well saying 'please* like that, but I don't understand. If you find me incredibly ugly and objectionable, I could follow your thinking, but it's pretty plain that you don't. I've driven you home. I've told you I think you're beautiful. Don't I even deserve an explanation?"
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She didn't answer at first. One side of her face was lit red by the light of Mathieu's taiffights, and the other side was in shadow. Gene was uncomfortably reminded of Mathieu's constant observation by the ceaseless drone of the Cadillac's eight-liter engine. In some .way that he couldn't grasp, he felt extremely defenseless and open to danger, as if this curious situation was suddenly going to turn nasty.
"Gene," whispered Lorie. 4Tm going."

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