The Last Gentleman

the engineer, remembering something, “but I certainly did not mean that I wasn’t ready and anxious to join the Vaughts. Besides that, I had already committed myself to Mr. Vaught and I always honor my obligations.”
    â€œSo now we’re an obligation,” said Kitty, addressing all Virginia. Her eyes flashed. It crossed his mind that she was what used to be called a noble high-spirited girl.
    â€œNo no, Kitty,” said the poor engineer.
    â€œYou may recall, Lance Corporal,” said Rita dryly, “that I asked you straight out which of us you wanted to work for, me or Poppy. You were unable to give a clear answer and spoke instead of Colorado. Knowing that you were a gentleman and did not like wrangling with women (I don’t blame you), I did not press the issue. Perhaps I was wrong.”
    The trouble was he could not be sure and she knew it. And as he gazed at her he fancied he caught a gleam in her eye. She was skirting with him the abyss within himself and not doing it ill-naturedly: I know, said the gleam, and you know that I know and that you are not quite sure and that I might even be right.
    â€œAnyhow Poppy is right,” said Rita, rubbing her hands briskly. “We are all here and that is what counts. Why don’t we hit the road?”
    They were all leaving that very day, it turned out. Another two hours and he’d have missed them.
    Mrs. Vaught and Kitty had one more room in the Governor’s Palace to see, one more pewter candle-snuffer to buy. The engineer stayed at the motel to help Jamie pack. But Jamie was tired and went to lie down; the engineer packed for him. Rita found him sitting on the back step of the camper counting his money.
    â€œYou can keep that,” she said. He had come to her post-dated check.
    â€œNo, thanks,” he said and handed it over. Now it was he who eyed her warily, but not disagreeably.
    â€œBelieve it or not, I’m very happy things worked out as they have.”
    â€œYou are?”
    â€œI’m afraid I was the cause of the misunderstanding.”
    He shrugged.
    â€œAnyhow you passed your test by ordeal and here is your prize.” For the second time she handed him a little hexagonal General Motors key.
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œYou want to know why I’m glad you’re here? Because you’re the only one who can help Jamie. If only you will. You know sometimes I have the feeling, Lance Corporal, that you are onto all of us, onto our most private selves. Or perhaps it is rather that it is you and I who know, who really know; and perhaps it is the nature of our secret that we cannot tell our friends or even each other but must rather act for the good of our friends.”
    The engineer was silent. From force of habit, he looked as if he knew what she was talking about, what their “secret” was, though in truth he had not the least idea.
    â€œBill.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œTake Jamie and get the hell out of here. Take Ulysses and go while the going is good. Go roam the byways and have a roistering good time of it. Find yourselves a couple of chicks. You’re two good-looking fellows, you know!”
    â€œThank you,” said the engineer politely.
    â€œDrink and love and sing! Do you know what I thought as I was standing in the governor’s bedroom yesterday?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œJamie was standing in front of me in the lovely, careless way he gets from you or from somebody, like young golden-haired Sir Tristram, leaning on his sword, and all at once the dreadful thought occurred to me: what must it be like to live and die without ever having waked in the morning and felt the warm mouth of one’s beloved on his?”
    â€œI couldn’t say,” said the engineer, who had never waked in the morning and found anybody’s warm mouth on his.
    â€œBill, have you ever been to the Golden Isles of Georgia?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€˜That’s where we’re headed. You can meet us there or not, as you like. And if you two bums want to detour through Norfolk, that’s all right too.”
    â€œO.K.”
    5 .
    They didn’t, the engineer and Jamie, quite cut loose after all, or detour through Norfolk (did Rita mean he should take Jamie to a whorehouse?) or feel any beloveds’ warm mouths on theirs. But they had a good time and went their own way for a day or two at a time, wandering down the old Tidewater, sleeping in the piney