Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

me and he had drawn me up againsl him close and he was murmuring against my hair. "Jan — Jannie, dearest — " His voice was choked as if it hurt him to say the words, because he wasn't one to use expressions of endearment easily. "Jannie, do you think I don't wish we'd had a little while, anyway, to be happy?" "Then let's not wait any longer!" I cried out suddenly, wildly. "Let's get married now!" T> RUCE pushed me away from him roughly, stood me off to stare into my face. "Jan," he said wonderingly, his voice slightly hoarse, his eyes unbelievably bright. "Jan, do you know what you're saying?" "Yes," I whispered, above my racing, uneven breaths. "Oh, yes, I know. I know we've waited three years, and it's been too long! We should have married and had this time together, had our happiness, ^nd maybe babies, and then you wouldn't have had to go at all!" "Jan," he reproached me gently. "Jan, you know I think I ought to go. I've got to get in this thing and do my share." "Yes." I sobered up then, a little. He was right, he was always right. "I wouldn't want you to feel any different. I want you to be just the way you are. But — Oh, Bruce, I want youl" I hardly knew what I was saying, the tears were wet on my face and on his, and my words just came with the tears. We had never talked this way before. His arms tightened then as if they'd crush me, his heart was pounding against my shoulder with a crashing beat. "Dearest," he whispered against my lips. "My love, my dear, I never loved you before the way I do this minute. I never wished for anything as hard as I'm wishing now that we could do what you say, have what little time there is left — together." "We can!" I protested urgently. "We can — " But he was shaking his head, his mouth sweet and smiling still but his eyes that clear blue I knew so well. "Jan, you know I wouldn't do that to you — " "Do what to me?" I asked fiercely, my arms holding myself tight against him. "Give rhe the happiness I've been waiting for all this time? Let me have what every girl wants, to live with the man she loves?" He set his teeth and spoke almost grimly. "That's just it," he said. "The better it is while we have it, the harder it will be to give it up." His voice came so hard now that it 18 was almost a groan. "For me it would be worth it. Worth anything. But for you — think, Jan, you'd just have to stay here and wait. Just plug along, waiting, maybe years — No, Jan, I won't tie you up like that for God knows how long. I tell you I won't — " But I knew right then that I was winning. Something about his voice, maybe, the unsteady huskiness of it, and his breathing and the way his heart was pounding again in his solid chest. More than anything, I knew by the way he kept insisting. He was not trying to convince me, he was trying to convince himself. The more he talked, the more I knew he wasn't certain. I looked up at the sweet curve of his mouth and the blood beating red in his cheeks, and I said, "Darling, don't bother. Don't keep on saying you won't marry me. You needn't. If you won't, I'll just go along with you, wherever you go, whatever you say. Like one of those camp followers in the books. And there isn't a thing in the world you can do about it. Honey — " I was laughing now, with the tears pouring down — "honey, you're stuck with me!" I don't think he knew that my tears were soaking his collar and jacket. I don't think he knew anything except that my body was there against his own, and it was his. In that moment I belonged to him. But it had to be that moment that Dr. Dale arrived at the office. . / began to feel really ashamed for Bruce. His solid face was completely expressionless. Why did he have to be so boorish?