What a friend Archie was. Was there another man in the world who would take her part so thoroughly?
Once again, she was seized with the desire to turn onto her side, to face him, but she did not. She did keep speaking the truth. The dark and the stars and the Archie-ness kept allowing it. “I don’t regret any of it.” She wanted him to know that.
Heturned ontohisside then, as if he had heard and was granting her silent wish. But, no, more likely he was turning over because he was going to object. She had finally gone too far in his estimation, and he was not going to allow her defiance to stand.
She could not abide that. She was more than a woman Theodore Bull had hurt. So she turned, too, so they were facing each other on the cold slate roof. It was too dark to make out his features, but she could see the shape of him, and she could sense his nearness. “If I hadn’t gotten the true measure of him, I never would have broken it off. And if I hadn’t donethat, I would be married.” She shuddered. “Is it not better I discovered his true nature before I married him, even if it means I’m ruined?”
“You’re not ruined, Clem,” he said quietly.
“Of course I am.”
“You’renot,” he insisted.
“Well, I suppose no one knows I’m ruined. It’s like that philosophical question about if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
“No. I mean you’renot ruined. The idea that the act of sexual congress imparts ruination only on unmarried women who partake in it is illogical. What if youhadmarried Mr. Bull? Then you’re not ruined? And what about him? Why isn’theruined?”
Oh, Archie. “That is an exceedingly enlightened viewpoint. I have to say I agree, though I never expected to find anyoneelsewho did. I have watched the coming together of all manner of animals. Birds and weasels and even deer. I’m not missish about it. I cannot truly believe the laws of nature should be so different for humans.”
“They aren’t.” His agreement was gratifying. She tried to make out his features in the dark. “’Tis merely that men have imposed their own laws, their own morality, their own sentiment, on the act.”
“That is precisely my point. I’ve seen how it is with grasshoppers. Thereisno morality or sentiment involved. It is quick and efficient, and it gets the job done. Why should it be any different with people?”
“Oh, but it is. You misunderstand me. It is very different.”
That gave her pause. So far, they’d been perfectly aligned in their views on the matter. “Howcanit be different, if one considers the natural purpose of it? It is an act that must occur to further the existence of mankind.”
“Yes, it is a necessary precondition for propagating mankind, but think of how often humans take pains topreventsuch propagation.”
“Do they?” She hadn’t realized. But it made sense. Why did some families have only one child and others a gaggle of them? She’d always assumed it was chance, but it seemed reasonable that strategy could be involved, too.
“They do indeed.”
“The pulling out.” Theo had been very theatrical about that bit, groaning as if he were being tortured by the devil himself. She could almost have looked back on it with amusement if what followed hadn’t been so wrenching. “That is the method for such prevention.”
“It is one among several.”
“Hmm.” It was hard to imagine what else would achieve that goal.
“My point is that among humans, the act can be about so much more than the propagation of the species.”
“What? What can it be about?”
“Pleasure, Clem.”
Ah. She understood now. “Yes. For the gentleman.”
“For the lady, too.”
She snorted. “That sounds like a lie gentlemen tell themselves.”
“I see,” he said blithely, as if she were a child too obstinate to continue reasoning with.
That tone rankled, especially from him. “And I suppose you have a great deal to say on the matter,” she snapped back, trying to incite a quarrel—so perhaps shewasbeing childish. It was just that she’d had a taste of Archie’s radical understanding, and she could not bear to revert to him thinking her silly, or simple, or both.
He did not rise to the bait, though, only said, a little wistfully, “Only that someday I hope you are proved wrong.”
* * *
