Highsmith, Patricia by The Price of Salt Page A

sound until Carol’s first step on the stair, and Therese knew whoever had been talking to her had hung up on her. Who dared, Therese wondered.
    “Shouldn’t I leave?” Therese asked.
    Carol looked at her in the same way she had when they first entered the house. “Not unless you want to. No. We’ll take a drive later, if you want to.”
    She knew Carol did not want to take another drive. Therese started to straighten the bed.
    “Leave the bed.” Carol was watching her from the hall. “Just close the door.”
    “Who is it that’s coming?”
    Carol turned and went into the green room. “My husband,” she said.
    “Hargess.”
    Then the doorbell chimed downstairs, and the latch clicked at the same time.
    “No end prompt today,” Carol murmured. “Come down, Therese.”
    Therese felt sick with dread suddenly, not of the man but of Carol’s annoyance at his coming.
    He was coming up the stairs. When he saw Therese, he slowed, and a faint surprise crossed his face, and then he looked at Carol.
    “Harge, this is Miss Belivet,” Carol said. “Mr. Aird.”
    “How do you do?” Therese said.
    Harge only glanced at Therese, but his nervous blue eyes inspected her from head to toe. He was a heavily built man with a rather pink face. One eyebrow was set higher than the other, rising in an alert peak in the center, as if it might have been distorted by a scar. “How do you do?”
    Then to Carol, “I’m sorry to disturb you. I only wanted to get one or two things.” He went past her and opened the door to a room Therese had not seen. “Things for Rindy,” he added.
    “Pictures on the wall?” Carol asked.
    The man was silent.
    Carol and Therese went downstairs. In the living room Carol sat down, but Therese did not.
    “Play some more, if you like,” Carol said.
    Therese shook her head.
    “Play some,” Carol said firmly.
    Therese was frightened by the sudden white anger in her eyes. “I can’t,”
    Therese said, stubborn as a mule.
    And Carol subsided. Carol even smiled.
    They heard Harge’s quick steps cross the hall and stop, then descend the stairs slowly. Therese saw his dark clad figure and then his pinkish blond head appear.
    “I can’t find that watercolor set. I thought it was in my room,” he said complainingly.
    I know where it is.” Carol got up and started toward the stairs.
    “I suppose you want me to take her something for Christmas,” Harge said.
    “Thanks, I’ll give the things to her.” Carol went up the stairs.
    They are just divorced, Therese thought, or about to be divorced.
    Harge looked at Therese, almost offered her his cigarette case, and didn’t. He had an intense expression that curiously mingled anxiety and boredom. The flesh around his mouth was firm and heavy, rounding into the line of his mouth so that he seemed lipless. He lighted a cigarette for himself. “Are you from New York?” he asked.
    Therese felt the disdain and incivility in the question, like the sting of a slap in the face. “Yes, from New York,” she answered.
    He was on the brink of another question to her, when Carol came down the stairs. Therese had steeled herself to be alone with him for minutes. Now she shuddered as she relaxed, and she knew that he saw it.
    “Thanks,” Harge said as he took the box from Carol. He walked to his overcoat that Therese had noticed on the loveseat, sprawled open with its black arms spread as if it were fighting and would take possession of the house. “Good-by,” Harge said to her. He put the overcoat on as he walked to the door. “Friend of Abby’s?” he murmured to Carol.
    “A friend of mine,” Carol answered.
    “Are you going to take the presents to Rindy? When?”
    “What if I gave her nothing, Harge?”
    “Carol—” He stopped on the porch, and Therese barely heard him say something about making things unpleasant. Then, “I’m going to see Cynthia now. Can I stop by on the way back? It’ll be before eight.”
    “Harge, what’s the