Wolf in Man's Clothing Read Online Free PDF Page A

father wanted me to stay here; he said we must get to know each other better. That pleased Craig; he hoped it meant his father was coming around. So he asked me to stay, and I did. I went to the train with him and he kissed me and said he’d be back in a week. It was there at the station—where we got off the train …” She bent closely over the dog again. “I never saw Craig again until today.”
    â€œ Never— why not?”
    â€œHe had to stay longer in Washington, two weeks, three weeks. It—it wasn’t …” She broke off and, after a moment said, “His father didn’t want to know me better. Alexia was here all the time, too. It wasn’t very pleasant.” Her voice hardened a little and she said, “Besides, there was Nicky. Craig didn’t come back, and I couldn’t stay here. I went away.” She stopped, as if that was all the story.
    â€œDo you mean to tell me you let them influence you like that? So you walked out and never returned?”
    â€œThat wasn’t all,” she said and seemed to think for a moment, arranging facts in the order which would make them clearest to me. She frowned and said: “You see, Sarah, I couldn’t stay here. So I left. But that wasn’t all, because Craig gave up his job. That was why he stayed so long in Washington. He had decided to get training as a pilot. It was before the war began. I mean before we got into it, naturally …”
    I nodded. Naturally. It had been then only a matter of weeks since Pearl Harbor.
    â€œHe wanted to get into the air force. He hadn’t talked to me about it before he went, and I understood why. It was because he knew that I would feel that he was giving up his chosen career because of me. I wouldn’t have let him do it, at least, I would have tried to stop him. But, you see, he didn’t know that at that time, and if he got the training he wanted he had to be unmarried. Then, and for that particular course of training, they wouldn’t take a married man. He didn’t know that until he applied for it. I didn’t know it until Mr. Brent wrote to me and told me.”
    I am not a profane woman. At the moment it was really a pity, for it left me simply nothing adequate to say. She nodded slowly, as if I’d asked her a question. “Yes,” she said. “That’s what I did. I believed him—Mr. Brent. How could I help it? He was obviously sincere about the whole thing. He wrote a letter that I wish I’d kept. I didn’t. I burned it. He said that I had wrecked Craig’s chosen career. He said that Craig now wanted to take training as a pilot and that I was—again—the obstacle. He said that he regretted everything he had said to me; he said that he was ready to accept our marriage—that is, our eventual marriage.” She stopped and took a long breath and I saw the picture complete.
    It was incredible, of course. Except that women like Drue can be just that incredible.
    â€œSo you believed him. You agreed to let bygones be bygones. And you promised to divorce Craig, let him complete his training, and then remarry.”
    â€œThat,” said Drue, “was the idea.”
    â€œGood heavens, Drue!”
    â€œI know. But then it seemed right. We had married so quickly, you see. Craig was giving up his job; and his father convinced me that the one thing he wanted was to get into the air force. Mr. Brent was—I can’t tell you how convincing he was. He asked me to forgive him for everything he’d said in anger. He said that he believed at last that Craig and I really loved each other. He said that Craig had set his heart upon becoming a pilot and getting into the army or the navy air force. He said Craig was deeply patriotic—and he is. I knew that. He said that what it—the divorce, I mean—really amounted to was merely a long engagement, and not very long at that. He made it