The Golden Goose Read Online Free PDF Page B

and opened the front door; she was instantly glad that she was the one who had to do it, for there, across the threshold, stood Coley Collins.

4
    Prin did not feel her usual responsible self where Coley Collins was concerned. When she was with him she felt cooperative with, if not dedicated to, his unoriginal designs. This was all the more remarkable because she had been with him, on and off, for only about two weeks—the entire duration of their acquaintanceship. Sometimes, in fairness to herself, she felt she ought to insert in the Cibola City Daily Views a variation of one of those little ads that disclaimed responsibility for someone else’s debts: Miss Princess O’Shea hereby and henceforth will not accept responsibility for any folly she may commit while in the company of Mr. Coley Collins . She did not suppose that such a public announcement of her feelings would exempt her from their consequences, but at least it would be decent warning to the community of how things were between them.
    Prin was on the whole a rational young woman. She had tried hard to delve into the possible sources of her curious response to Coley Collins, with a view to coming up with an answer that made sense. She had found herself floundering in the sloughs of “body chemistry” and other such nonexplanatory explanations; and the one hard conclusion she reached—that Coley Collins ought to be someone she could take or leave at will—proved more convincing in theory than in practice. The fact was, she could not leave Coley alone. Since Coley was enjoying the same disease, they had decided to make the best of whatever was ailing them—and the best of it was pretty wonderful. Even the worst of it had its moments.
    They had met in the taproom of the Coronado, Cibola City’s only “good” hotel. Nice girls do not appear unaccompanied in hotel taprooms without raising questions about their niceness; however, Princess O’Shea was the sort of nice girl who turned her nice nose up at questions to which she had answers that satisfied her. So it was an inevitable encounter. Because once Prin decided she wanted a daiquiri in the Coronado taproom, she had to meet Coley, Coley being the bartender on duty. They had not met in the Coronado taproom before because Coley had not been the bartender on duty there during Prin’s last solo, having acquired the job in the interim. But on this particular evening there he was, a few minutes past five, dressed in a white mess jacket, the kind that makes almost any young male look like a soldier of fortune who ought to be in Maracaibo or Darjeeling or some place drinking—instead of making—gin slings. Coley was a kind of soldier of fortune, being lost in a way—having knocked about here and there, in the course of which he had acquired odd skills, like bar-keeping, and never having accomplished much; never, indeed, having known what if anything he would like to accomplish. This was a great pity, as Prin came to see it, for Coley had superb equipment for the accomplishment of almost anything, if only he could have made up his mind what it should be.
    On this evening, two weeks or so before, Prin had settled her nice little bottom on a stool at the taproom bar—thinking how delicious a cold tart daiquiri was going to taste after her odious afternoon constructing obscene sundaes at the soda counter of Free’s Drug Store—and when she looked up, there Coley was. Nothing was quite the same ever after. He had crisp cropped dark hair and a lean dark disturbing face and dark eyes that always seemed to be laughing, sometimes at and sometimes with, depending on what or whom they were looking at; and now, looking at Prin, it was with, at once, and for good and all.
    â€œGood evening,” Coley said softly. “Your pleasure, Miss?”
    â€œGood evening,” Prin said back, and immediately felt that they had exchanged intimacies. “I believe