"Didn't we both get what we were looking for?"
"We gave each other what the other needed would be a nicer way to put it."
"All right," she said. "Yes, we did. I hope I did. I know you did. But now it's time to come back to the real world."
"And for me to go home."
"Right."
"I don't want to go home. I want to stay here with you, forever."
"That's obviously out of the question."
He sat up. She tried to hand him the cup and saucer. He avoided it.
She touched the top of his head.
"You are really very sweet," she said.
He tilted his head back to look up at her. She smiled.
He reached up for the cord of her robe.
"Don't do that."
He ignored her.
The robe fell open when he pulled the cord free.
He put his arms around her and his face against her belly.
He heard her take in her breath, and her hand dropped to the small of his neck.
"Oh God!" she said.
Her navel was next to his mouth and he kissed it.
"I'm going to spill the coffee."
"Put the coffee on the floor and take the robe off."
"And if I do, then will you go?"
"No."
She dropped to her knees and put the cup and saucer on the floor, shrugged out of the robe, and then turned her face to him and kissed him.
"Oh, Baby, what am I going to do with you?"
"I don't know about that," he said. "But I know what I'm going to do to you."
He put his hands on her shoulders and moved her onto the bed and looked down at her.
"God, you're so beautiful!" he said.
"So are you," she said.
And then he surprised her very much by pushing himself off the bed. She raised her head to look at him. He walked to the other side of the bed and sat down and reached for her telephone.
"Father," he said into it. "Uncle Bill and I have had a long talk and a lot to drink, and I think it would be best if I stayed over with him at the Union League, rather than driving."
There was a pause, and then Sergeant John Marston Moore, USMCR, said: "You're going to have to understand, Father, that I'm no longer a child. I can drink whatever and whenever I wish."
There was another pause.
"There's something else, Father. My orders have been changed. I have to leave tomorrow afternoon. When Mother's awake, please tell her that I'll be out there sometime before noon to pack. I have to see Mr. Schuyler at First Philadelphia, first."
One final pause.
"I think you know why I have to see Mr. Schuyler, Father," John said.
A moment later, he took the receiver from his ear and looked at it.
It was clear to Barbara Ward (Mrs. Howard P.) Hawthorne, Jr., that John's father had hung up on him. There was pain in his eyes when he turned from putting the receiver in its cradle and looked at her.
"Oh, Baby," she said. "Whatever that was, I'm sorry."
"Do you think you could manage to call me 'Darling,' or 'Sweetheart,' or something besides 'Baby'?... I'll even settle happily for 'John.'"
She held her arms open.
"Come to me, my darling," she said.
He didn't move.
"I thought you wanted me to leave."
She put her arms down and pulled the sheet up and held it over her breast.
She found his eyes and looked into them and said, "I want what's best for you."
"You're what's best for me."
"You really have to leave tomorrow? Which is really, now, today?"
"No. Thursday."