Read Online Beyond This Horizon by Robert A. Heinlein - Free Book Online Page A

ornaments, and her costume clips. They all were of the same dull gold as the skin tight metallic habit he had chosen.
    He should at least have noticed that she had considered what he was wearing in selecting her own apparel. Instead he answered, “Fine. We’ll be right on time.”
    “It’s a new gown, Clifford.”
    “It’s very pretty,” he answered agreeably. “Shall we go?”
    “Yes, surely.”
    He said very little during the ride, but watched the traffic as if the little car were not capable of finding its way through the swarming traffic without his supervision. When the car finally growled to a stop at the top floor of an outlying residence warren he started to raise the shell, but she put a hand on his arm. “Let it be, for a moment, Clifford. Can we talk for a little before we get lost in a swarm of people?”
    “Why surely. Is something the matter?”
    “Nothing—and everything. Clifford, my dear—there’s no need for us to go on as we have been going.”
    “Huh? What do you mean?”
    “You know what I mean if you stop to think about it. I’m not necessary to you any more—am I?”
    “Why, uh—Hazel, I don’t know why you should say a thing like that. You’ve been swell. You’re a swell girl, Hazel. Nobody could ask for anything more.”
    “Mmmm…that’s as may be. I don’t have any secret vices and I’ve never done you any harm that I know of. But that’s not what I mean. You don’t get any pleasure out of my company any more—any lift .”
    “Uh…that’s not so. I couldn’t ask for any better pal than you’ve been. We’ve never had an argu—”
    She checked him with her hand. “You still don’t understand me. It might be better if we did quarrel a little. I’d have a better idea of what goes on behind those big solemn eyes of yours. You don’t dislike me. In fact, I think you like me as well as you like anybody. You even like to be with me, sometimes, if you’re tired and I happen to fit your mood. But that isn’t enough. And I’m fond enough of you to be concerned about you, darling. You need something more than I’ve been able to give you.”
    “I don’t know how any woman could do any more than you’ve done for me.”
    “I do. I do, because I was once able to do it. Do you remember when we first registered? I gave you a lift then. You were happy. It made me happy, too. You were so pathetically pleased with me and with everything about me that sometimes I could cry, just to look at you.”
    “I haven’t stopped being pleased with you.”
    “Not consciously. But I think I know what happened.”
    “What?”
    “I was still dancing then. I was the great Hazel, premiere danseuse, I was everything you had never been. Glamour and bright lights and music. I remember how you used to call for me after a performance, looking so proud and so glad to see me. And I was so impressed by your intellect (I still am, dear) and I was so flattered that you paid attention to me.”
    “Why you could have had your pick of all the braves in the country.”
    “They didn’t look at me the way you did. But that isn’t the point. I’m not really glamorous and never was. I was just a working girl, doing the job she could do best. Now the lights are out and the music has stopped and I’m no longer any help to you.”
    “Don’t say that, kid.”
    She placed a hand on his arm. “Be honest with yourself, Cliff. My feelings aren’t hurt. I’m not a romantic person. My feelings have always been maternal, rather than anything else. You’re my baby. You aren’t happy and I want you to be happy.”
    He shrugged helplessly. “What is there to do about it? Even if everything you say is true, what is there to do?”
    “I could make a guess. Somewhere there is a girl who is everything you thought I was. Someone who can do for you what I once did by just being herself.”
    “Hunnh! I don’t know where I’d find her. There isn’t any such person. No, kid, the trouble is with me, not