Though they were very dissimilar in character, they also shared many tastes and appetites, and those they didn't share they tolerated in each other with instinctive respect, as a necessary spice of difference. They knew each other very well indeed. Her natural tendency was to deplore human failings in others and ignore them in herself; his natural tendency was to understand and forgive human failings in others, and be merciless upon them in himself. She felt herself invincibly strong; he knew himself perilously weak. And somehow it all came together as a nearly perfect friendship, in the name of which nothing was impossible. However, since Justine was by far the more talkative, Dane always got to hear a lot more about her and what she was feeling than the other way around. In some respects she was a little bit of a moral imbecile, in that nothing was sacred, and he understood that his function was to provide her with the scruples she lacked within herself. Thus he accepted his role of passive listener with a tenderness and compassion which would have irked Justine enormously had she suspected them.
Not that she ever did; she had been bending his ear about absolutely anything and everything since he was old enough to pay attention. "Guess what I did last night?" she asked, carefully adjusting her big straw hat so her face and neck were well shaded.
"Acted in your first starring role," Dane said. "Prawn! As if I wouldn't tell you so you could be there to see me. Guess again."
"Finally copped a punch Bobbie meant for Billie."
"Cold as a stepmother's breast."
He shrugged his shoulders, bored. "Haven't a clue."
They were sitting in the Domain on the grass, just below the Gothic bulk of Saint Mary's Cathedral. Dane had phoned to let Justine know he was coming in for a special ceremony in the cathedral, and could she meet him for a while first in the Dom? Of course she could; she was dying to tell him the latest episode.
Almost finished his last year at Riverview, Dane was captain of the school, captain of the cricket team, the Rugby, handball and tennis teams. And dux of his class into the bargain. At seventeen he was two inches over six feet, his voice had settled into its final baritone, and he had miraculously escaped such afflictions as pimples, clumsiness and a bobbing Adam's apple. Because he was so fair he wasn't really shaving yet, but in every other way he looked more like a young man than a schoolboy. Only the Riverview uniform categorized him.
It was a warm, sunny day. Dane removed his straw boater school hat and stretched out on the grass, Justine sitting hunched beside him, her arms about her knees to make sure all exposed skin was shaded. He opened one lazy blue eye in her direction.
"What did you do last night, Jus?"
"I lost my virginity. At least I think I did."
Both his eyes opened. "You're a prawn."
"Pooh! High time, I say. How can I hope to be a good actress if I don't have a clue what goes on between men and women?" "You ought to save yourself for the man you marry."
Her face twisted in exasperation. "Honestly, Dane, sometimes you're so archaic I'm embarrassed! Suppose I don't meet the man I marry until I'm forty? What do you expect me to do? Sit on it all those years? Is that what you're going to do, save it for marriage?"
"I don't think I'm going to get married."
"Well, nor am 1. In which case, why tie a blue ribbon around it and stick it in my nonexistent hope chest? I don't want to die wondering." He grinned. "You can't, now." Rolling over onto his stomach, he propped his chin on his hand and looked at her steadily, his face soft, concerned. "Was it all right? I mean, was it awful? Did you hate it?" Her lips twitched, remembering. "I didn't hate it, at any rate. It wasn't awful, either. On the other hand, I'm afraid I don't see what everyone raves about. Pleasant is as far as I'm prepared to go. And it isn't as if I chose just anyone; I selected someone very attractive and old enough to know what he was doing."
He sighed. "You are a prawn, Justine. I'd have been a lot happier to hear you say, "He's not much to look at, but we met and I couldn't help myself." I can accept that you don't want to wait until you're married, but it's still something you've got to want because of the person. Never because of the act, Jus. I'm not surprised you weren't ecstatic."
All the gleeful triumph faded from her face. "Oh, damn you, now you've made me feel awful! If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were trying to put me down-or my motives, at any rate."
"But you do know me better, don't you? I'd never put you down, but sometimes your motives are plain thoughtlessly silly." He adopted a tolling, monotonous voice. "I am the voice of your conscience, Justine O'neill."
"You are, too, you prawn." Shade forgotten, she flopped back on the grass beside him so he couldn't see her face. "Look, you know why. Don't you?" "Oh, Jussy," he said sadly, but whatever he was going to add was lost, for she spoke again, a little savagely.
