Wave Without A Shore

XIV

"I'm back," he announced that evening at Keye's door. The servant let him in and Keye herself, about to sit down to a solitary supper, betrayed herself with a slight lifting of the brows.

"Oh. Should I be happy?"

"Be what you choose. I trust there's something in the pantry."

"See to it," Keye told the servant, waving her hand, and indicated the other chair. "So you're back. And how much else do you assume?"

"Oh, be yourself. I'd never interfere."

She dropped the smile, sat there looking as if something had gone down the wrong way, and stared at him a moment. He kept smiling, because if she threw him out he would have won, and if she let him stay he would have won.

He stayed.

If Keye noticed the brooch she said nothing, nor touched it, nor commented on the rift which had been between them. Keye was either on the retreat or, falsely self-assured, thought that she had won. He did not think the latter. "Have you," she asked, "moved to the Residency yet?"

He shrugged. "I'm waiting a moment of convenience. I've been too busy lately to consider an interruption."

"The work out there is going much faster than I would have believed."

"What, do I surprise you?"

"If you like."

"I'm satisfied with it."

He wondered for a moment about Keye. Meekness was not her style, but possibly she was lonely, as he was. He admitted that much, having also admitted to himself that he could live in solitude if he chose. And Keye, who was superior to all but him and Waden, had to have come to similar decisions.

His reality, he concluded, was flexible enough to tolerate Keye. And to laugh at her pretensions.