Rodney was turning pages as regularly as
clockwork. It was a silly magazine! She wished she'd found something
that really could interest her. It was getting harder and harder to sit
still. He couldn't be angry about anything, could he? No, that was
absurd. There hadn't been the slightest trace of a disagreement between
them. She wouldn't go on pretending to read, anyhow, and she tossed the
magazine away.
She had meant it to fall back on the table. But she put more nervous
force than she realized into the toss, so that it skittered across the
table and fell on the floor with a slap.
That roused him. He closed his book--on his finger, though--looked
around at her, stretched his arms and smiled. "Isn't this great?" he
said.
It wasn't a sentiment she could echo quite whole-heartedly just then,
so she asked him what he meant--wasn't what great.
"Oh, this," he told her. "Being like this."
"Sitting half a mile apart this way," she asked, "each of us reading our
own book?"
She didn't realize how completely provocative her meaning was, until, to
her incredulous bewilderment, he said enthusiastically, "Yes! exactly!"
He wasn't looking at her now, but into the fire, and he rummaged for a
match and relighted his pipe before he said anything more.
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