Page:Twilight Sleep (Grosset).pdf/176

RV 168 "Oh, Stan—" Her heart gave a leap of joy. In these free days, when the young came and went as they chose, who would have believed that these two had never yet given themselves a stolen evening? Perhaps it was just because it was so easy. Only difficult things tempted Nona, and the difficult thing was always to say "No."

Yet was it? She stole a glance at Heuston's profile, as a street-lamp touched it, saw the set lips already preparing a taunt at her refusal, and wondered if saying no to everything required as much courage as she liked to think. What if moral cowardice were the core of her boasted superiority? She didn't want to be "like the others"—but was there anything to be proud of in that? Perhaps her disinterestedness was only a subtler vanity, not unrelated, say, to Lita's refusal to let a friend copy her new dresses, or Bee Lindon's perpetual craving to scandalize a world sated with scandals. Exhibitionists, one and all of them, as the psycho-analysts said—and, in her present mood, moral exhibitionism seemed to her the meanest form of the display.

"How mid-Victorian, Stan!" she laughed. "As if there were any heavens to fall! Where shall we go? It will be the greatest fun. Isn't there rather a good little Italian restaurant somewhere near here? And afterward there's that nigger dancing at the Housetop."

"Come along, then!"

She felt as little and light as a wisp of straw