Page:The Torrents of Spring - Ernest Hemingway (1987 reprint).pdf/95

 That's not my idea of a flamingo,' Gosse remarked.

No, Gosse. That's God's idea of a flamingo,' Professor Whatsisname said. I wish I could remember his name."

"Don't bother," Scripps said. His eyes were bright. He leaned forward. Something was pounding inside of him. Something he could not control. "I love you, Mandy," he said. "I love you. You are my woman." The thing was pounding away inside of him. It would not stop.

"That's all right," Mandy answered. "I've known you were my man for a long time. Would you like to hear another story? Speaking of woman."

"Go on," Scripps said. "You must never stop, Mandy. You are my woman now."

"Sure," Mandy agree. "This story is about when Knut Hamsun was a streetcar conductor in Chicago."

"Go on," Scripps said. "You are my woman now, Mandy."

He repeated the phrase to himself. My woman. My woman. You are my woman. She is my woman. It is my woman. My woman. But, somehow, he was not satisfied. Somewhere, somehow, there must be something else. Something else. My woman. The words were a little hollow now. Into his mind, though he tried to thrust it out, there came again the monstrous picture of the squaw as she strode silently into the room. That squaw. She did not wear clothes, because she did not like them. Hardy, braving the winter nights. What might not the spring bring? Mandy was talking. Mandy talking on in the beanery. Mandy telling her stores. It grows late in the beanery. Mandy talks on. She is his woman now. He is her man. But is he her man? In Scripps's brain that vi-