The thought of that scene sickened her. Ross must never know.
Still, she was tempted to tell him many times over the next few days. The opportunities cropped up again and again.
"You're a pretty conventional guy," she said one morning as they ate omelets in a Swiss chalet restaurant overlooking the surf. "But I'm not sure how you stand on things like..."
She had to catch her breath in the middle of the sentence. Her nerve almost failed her. Surely he would see right through her and know!
"Things like mar riage and having babies. Just how important are those things to you?"
Ross searched her eyes, trying to read her motives. Here it was again, another bit of quicksand she'd shoved in front of him. Why was she testing him this way all the time lately? They'd been all through this and decided he could live with her craziness if she could stand his normalcy. Was she having second thoughts?
"Marriage isn't that important to me," he told her, though if the truth were known, he had never given the subject a lot of thought. "And babies are beings totally foreign to my experience. I can take them or leave them."
"You don't feel the need of a baby to carry your name and all that sort of thing?" Her attempt at a smile was tremulous. "No baby dreams?"
He took hold of her shoulders. "Charity, I don't want a baby. I only want you. What do I have to do to get through to you?"
She nodded, but her face was white. "That's all I wanted to know," she said.
Ross frowned. He thought he'd answered in a way that wouldn't threaten her, but she didn't look happy. He was beginning to think the old jokes about never being able to understand women had some basis in fact. If he only knew what it was she wanted, he'd do his best to make sure she got it.
In the meantime Charity had decided once again that telling Ross was the worst thing she could do.
And then he left for Australia, and this time her unhap piness was too deep for tears.