She stopped, too. “Yes, banking. What did you expect me to say? Home economics?” There was undisguised asperity in her voice. To her surprise, he burst out laughing.
“No. I’m not a chauvinist. It’s just that I can’t see you as a stodgy banker in a gray pin-striped suit.”
“Lord, I hope not,” she said, relaxing somewhat. They started walking again. “I want to specialize in banking from the woman’s point of view. Many banks now have departments that cater to women, particularly women who have their own businesses or divorcées or widows who for the first time are having to manage their money. Often they don’t know the first thing about balancing a checkbook, much less opening a savings account or securing a loan.”
“You have my wholehearted approval,” he said, placing a hand over his heart. “I think it’s a great idea.”
“Thank you.” She dropped a curtsy.
The sidewalks were all but deserted now. The sun had set behind Gresham Hall and the sky was tinted a pale shade of indigo. Oaks and elms, their leaves burnished by the cool fall weather, overhung the sidewalk, lending it intimacy. Indeed one couple had found this romantic aura too difficult to resist.
Grant’s and Shelley’s footsteps echoed hollowly on the cracked, lichen-covered sidewalk as they approached the couple. The young woman’s back was pressed against the trunk of a tree as the young man leaned into her. His feet straddled hers. Their heads were angled, mouths fused. Their arms were wound around each other.
As Shelley guiltily watched them, the man’s hips rotated slowly and the woman’s hand slipped lower from his waist to apply encouraging pressure. All the blood in her body rushed to Shelley’s face and bathed it with a bright stain. She risked looking at Grant out of the corner of her eye and was further embarrassed to see that he was studying her reaction closely. He smiled crookedly and picked up their pace until the oblivious lovers were left far behind.
“Are you working now?” Grant asked, to relieve the tension between them.
“No. I’m a professional student. I decided to devote all my time and effort to my education. I managed to finance it so I wouldn’t have to work.”
“Cash settlement?”
She never discussed her divorce, but strangely she wasn’t offended by Grant’s question. The bitterness that had stayed with her for months after the final papers had been signed had gradually abated. Regrets remained, but then she had expected that. “Yes. I didn’t want to rely on Daryl for my livelihood, but I felt he owed me an education. We finally came to an agreement that satisfied both of us.”
“Would you mind if I asked what happened?”
“We got married mistakenly and got divorced five years later.”
They crossed another deserted street before he said, “No details?”
She looked up at him. “Please.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that I think the man’s a damned fool, and if I ever meet him face-to-face, I’m likely to tell him so.”
“It doesn’t matter. He has what he wants. He’s a doctor in Oklahoma City, outstanding in his field. When last I heard, he was squiring the chief of staff’s daughter. Daryl would consider that a real feather in his cap.”
Grant breathed an expletive through firmly set lips. “I guess you sacrificed your education to work and put him through medical school.”
“Something like that, yes.” She was alarmed at the fierceness of his expression. “Here’s my house,” she said nervously.
He followed her up the narrow, somewhat uneven sidewalk to the alcove that sheltered the arched front door. The house was made of dark reddish-brown brick and trimmed with white woodwork. The grass and shrub-bery were well clipped, but the yard was littered with fallen leaves from the twin pecan trees on either side of the center sidewalk.
“I love it, Shelley,” Grant said enthusiastically.
“Do you? I did, too, from the moment I sa
w it. I’ll hate to part with it when I graduate and leave.”
“And where will you go? Do you have any prospects for a job?”
“Not just now, but this spring I’ll start sending out letters of inquiry. I suppose I’ll have to gravitate toward the metropolitan areas in order to find a bank large enough to support a separate women’s department.”
By the end of her speech, her voice was no more than a slender thread of sound. It unnerved her for him to be watching her mouth with that devouring look.
“Thank you for—” she began.
“Shelley, aren’t you the least bit curious? You haven’t asked why a beautiful, rich senator’s daughter would kill herself over me.”
She was dumbfounded. Never had she expected him to bring up the subject of his expulsion from Washington so openly. Of course she had been curious. The entire country had been. When the headlines came off the press proclaiming the suicide of one of Washington’s darlings, the public had been outraged.