divorced himself. Oh, you'll just adore each other. He's a little shy, like you are in public, positively brilliant and really one of the sweetest guys in the world-" "Now listen to you-" Dave interrupted with a tease.

"He was awfully wonderful to Dave; used to stay up to all kinds of hours with him before the exams-

Dave looked unappreciative, "Lots of people do that "

"Well," I said with an easy abandon, "I don't like them shy or brilliant, you know that."

"You'll like Kevin all right. I know because I've been studying him lately with you in mind. Definitely your type." Sel put down her glass then and looked at me without smiling. "Let's face it, honey, you're twenty-six. You're beautiful and all that, but you are twenty-six."

Dave gave her a mock frown, "So she's twenty-six. Big deal. So are you almost. So what!"

Sel raised her fork like a gavel, "But married!"

The word married stuck in my mind. Sel thought it was the beginning and end. of life and that I didn't know it. And tonight I had planned to tell her... My eyes found the clock on their mantelpiece. Everynight my eyes were driven by a faithful little agitation in my heart to look, to find a clock somewhere about the same time, no matter where I was. It was ten-thirty. In an hour she would be home, standing tired in the middle of the living room. She would. as always, stand there and stare at the apartment like a stranger, waiting for me to appear from somewhere...

"You can't go on living with roommates for the rest of your life. Margarite," Sel was saying.

I wondered what had brought it all on so suddenly, with such determination. I had been so careful about all the obvious things. They had seen Eve only a few times and I rarely mentioned her at all-except every now and then to remark on her aloofness or coolness as a person. I knew they had to consider my relationship with my roommate as cordial but perhaps a little unpleasant. Yes, I had been very careful. In three years Eve had remained an unimportant enigma to them. Some semi-famous, career preoccupied woman who was tidy enough and cooperative enough for another adult to share an apartment with until one or both should get married. Someone to be politely friendly with on the telephone when they called me. That was Eve to them. I knew my Eve.

But now it occurred to me that I had neglected other things. As Sel talked I realized that she took my apparent happiness as the first sign of the spinster's brave and phoney adjustment. It had been foolish of me to think that my cousin didn't worry a lot about my not being married, happy or not. In four years, after all, I had failed to come up with a single guy who had broken my heart or something, and the casual if dutifully arranged dates every so often, faithfully reported on, did not take the place of that.

I smiled to myself. After tonight it wouldn't matter-all the silly little lies which Eve hated so and which I hated too, but endured because they had seemed so necessary, once.

"As for the Lady Eve-" Sel was saying crisply. Eve's name shocked me back to attention. "I've even got someone in mind for her—'

"Aw come on, honey . . ." Dave protested.

"I like to see people get married and settle down--" Sel argued with unbelievable charm.

one

24