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 suitcases, bringing empty cognac bottles back with ’em and snickering about French girls and trying to make love to you in French. Say, I bet where you went you could see a lot of mountains and little cute towns on the side of ’em, and old gray walls and ruined castles on the mountains, couldn’t you?”

“Yes’m. And one place was high over a lake. It was blue as blue like washing water,” he said finally. “Water with bluing in it. They put bluing in the water when they wash clothes, country folks do,” he explained.

“I know,” she said impatiently. “Were there mountains around it?”

“The Alps Mountains, and little white boats on it no bigger than water beetles. You couldn’t see ’em moving: you only could see the water kind of spreading out to each side. The water would keep on spreading out until it pretty near touched both shores whenever a boat passed. And you could lay on your back on the mountain where I was and watch eagles flying around way up above the water, until sunset. Then the eagles all went back to the mountains.” David gazed through the port, past her sober tanned face mooned there by the round window, not even seeing it any more, seeing instead his washing powder colored lake and his lonely mountains and eagles against the blue.

“And then the sun would go down, and sometimes the mountains would look like they were on fire all over. That was the ice and snow on ’em. It was pretty at night too,” he added simply, scrubbing again at his pots.

“Gee,” she said with hushed young longing. “And that’s what you get for being a woman. I guess I’ll have to get married and have a bunch of kids.” She watched him with her grave opaque eyes. “No, I’m not, either,” she said fiercely, “I’m going to make Hank let me go there next summer. Can’t