Magician's Wife Read Online Free PDF

gag?”
    â€œNo,” he said seriously. “Listen, there is such a thing as knowing the big things in life from the little ones, of being able to tell when you’ve been hit by a truck. All right, I own up, I have been. But you’ve been making noises as though it hit you too, so why do you call it a gag? What’s stopping you from staying here, tucking away with me, and then as soon as you’re ready shoving off for Reno, Tahoe, Vegas, or wherever you want it done? Then we get married, that’s all. And go on from there. That’s simple, isn’t it?”
    â€œLittle too simple, Clay.”
    â€œHow, too simple?”
    â€œIn—all kinds of various ways.”
    â€œIn one way, you’re damned right it’s simple: You’ll be here, then—and not there, warming the hay for a husband, when he gets home from his show.”
    â€œOh, so that’s it!”
    â€œThat among other things.”
    â€œIt’s one thing you don’t have to worry about!”
    She got up, smoothed her skirt, shook her hair, and declaimed: “When I heard about Busty Buster, that girl he has in his act, and what he was doing with her—I locked my door. Did you hear what I said, Clay? I locked it and locked it for good. It was just before Elly was born and—”
    â€œElly? Who is he?”
    â€œMy little boy, who do you think?”
    â€œYou—have a child? ”
    â€œWell my goodness, Clay, I’m married! Wives do have children, don’t they? Elly’s three years old, and even before he came, I tell you I locked my door. I—”
    â€œI took you for—twenty-two, three-years old.”
    â€œI’m twenty-one, so happens.”
    â€œThen—O.K., let’s get him too.”
    â€œHe’s at his grandfather’s now.”
    She said Mr. El had sent for the boy, to spend the Easter holidays, and had kept him a few days longer, “and that’s why I’m free to traipse over here with you.” He said: “Then stay, and when we’re ready, go get him and—”
    â€œStop being the Wild Man from Borneo!”
    â€œIs that what I look like to you?”
    â€œClay, I hate nutty ideas.”
    â€œO.K., but what’s nutty about it?”
    â€œEverything.”
    â€œIs there any good reason you can’t?”
    â€œYes! Elly, for one thing!”
    â€œSo he’s hanging us up—and I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I have an office back there, a spare bedroom, really, with fixtures and stuff in it that we can move out tomorrow, so workmen can come in, paint rabbits on the wall, and make a nursery out of it. Then we’ll put in his trundle bed and—”
    â€œPlease, please, please!”
    She was touched, or seemed to be, and sat down on the opposite sofa, getting a handkerchief out of her bag, wiping her eyes and biting her lip. Then, quietly, she said: “You made me cry, Clay—that you’d feel so friendly to him, my own little boy, means something, I can tell you. But where he sleeps and the pictures he has on the wall aren’t what I’m talking about. They’re important, but they’re not all.”
    â€œYeah? And what’s the rest?”
    â€œHis full, fair share of a fortune.”
    â€œThe Gorsuch fortune, you mean?”
    â€œYes. It’s what’s been hanging things up.”
    â€œThings? You mean, a divorce?”
    â€œThat’s it. Between me and Alec.”
    â€œAll right, Sally, I begin to get it now, but make it plain, will you? So I get the picture?”
    â€œWe’re marking time, that’s all.”
    â€œOn what?”
    â€œA—certain event.”
    â€œDo you mean the death of Mr. El?”
    â€œWell, I could never make myself say it, but since you have, that’s what we’re talking about. Until that event takes place, I dare not make a move, because he could resent it, Clay—and take