"What's virtuous about being unmarried?" Peggy asked with rash curiosity. "I've always heard it the other way around, to be horrifyingly frank. Not that everyone I know is as avid as..." She threw a glance over her shoulder, a raised eyebrow sure that Victor would follow her thought. "But...there is a certain expectation.
"That's why--" Peggy hesitated. "Let's just say that I have engaged in the expectation of marriage more than once," she said. "Of my own volition, no less. But that does not mean that I am available to all and sundry, so it's just as well that you're not hanging out for a wife."
It was hard and easy at the same time to talk about this. Hard, because the memory of Steve was still fresh, but easier than she'd expected, because Victor was a stranger, and because under the circumstances, it was easy to be frank. Marriage was the universal preoccupation around here.
"But you're right, I'm not in a line of work that's very kind to ... relationships." She looked down, realizing that easier was relative. What she'd had with Steve had been unspoken, but the memory was suddenly all too close, all too difficult.
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"That's why--" Peggy hesitated. "Let's just say that I have engaged in the expectation of marriage more than once," she said. "Of my own volition, no less. But that does not mean that I am available to all and sundry, so it's just as well that you're not hanging out for a wife."
It was hard and easy at the same time to talk about this. Hard, because the memory of Steve was still fresh, but easier than she'd expected, because Victor was a stranger, and because under the circumstances, it was easy to be frank. Marriage was the universal preoccupation around here.
"But you're right, I'm not in a line of work that's very kind to ... relationships." She looked down, realizing that easier was relative. What she'd had with Steve had been unspoken, but the memory was suddenly all too close, all too difficult.