Pamela Morsi Read Free

her incredulity.
    “Good heavens! Of course not. How could you even think—”
    Rome wished he hadn’t. He had a strong urge to kick himself.
    “I didn’t think … I assure you, Miss Gussie, I didn’t think anything. It’s just that you spoke of
making
him marry you, and you … well, you two have been keeping company for a long time and …”
    She gave a startled gasp at that statement. He was digging himself in deeper and deeper.
    “Mr. Dewey and I are not starry-eyed youths,” Miss Gussie stated flatly. “We would never allow passion to exceed the bounds of discretion.”
    Rome chose not to comment upon that. He was inexperienced with the contemplation of, and motivations for, holy wedlock. He was significantly more familiar with the pleasures of the flesh. And though it was true that many husbands appeared less than lusty where their wives were concerned, most seemed to marry those women in a high fever of desire.
    “I am sorry, Miss Gussie,” he said sincerely. “I am afraid I am putting everything badly. Frankly, I’m at a loss as to what you plan to do and what my part in it might be.”
    The woman was sitting in that extraordinarily straight manner again, so that she didn’t touch the chair back. And her tone of voice was completely businesslike and matter-of-fact.
    “I thought about it all night,” she said. “And I believe that the problem here is lack of competition.”
    Rome raised an eyebrow. “Beg your pardon, ma’am. Did you say competition?”
    “Yes,” Gussie replied. “That is the problem exactly. People, Mr. Akers, are just like businesses. They act and think and evolve in the same way as commercial enterprise. People want and need things. But when those things are vastly available, they prize them differently.”
    “Well, yes, I guess so,” Rome agreed.
    “So when we consider Mr. Dewey’s hesitancy to marry me,” she continued, “we must avoid emotionalism and try to consider the situation logically.”
    “Logically?”
    Rome was not sure that logic was a big consideration when it came to love.
    “Mr. Dewey has been on his own for some time now,” she said. “He has a nice home, a hired woman to cook and clean, a satisfying business venture, good friends and me, a pleasant companion to escort to community events. Basically, all his needs as a man are met. He has a virtual monopoly on the things that he requires.”
    Rome was not certain that
all
of a man’s
needs
had been stated, but after his embarrassing foray in that direction, he decided not to comment.
    “He is quite comfortable with his life as it is,” Miss Gussie continued. “Whyever should he change?”
    “Why indeed?” Rome agreed.
    She smiled then. That smile that he’d seen often before. That smile that meant a new idea, a cleverinnovation, an expansion of the company. He had long admired Miss Gussie’s good business sense, and the very best of her moneymaking notions came with this smile.
    “I can do nothing about Mr. Dewey’s nice home, the woman hired to cook and clean, his business or his friends,” Miss Gussie said. “But I can see that he no longer has a monopoly upon my pleasant companionship.”
    Rome raised an eyebrow and nodded.
    “This is where it all came clear to me,” she said. “In the middle of the night, after hours of going over it in my head, I came to the question of whyever should he change. This is when it all came clear.”
    Rome listened with interest.
    “Tell me, Mr. Akers,” she began. “If, say, our customers wanted twice-weekly ice delivery, would we give it to them?”
    Rome was momentarily puzzled and then shrugged.
    “If they were willing to pay twice as much,” he answered.
    “Oh, but they aren’t,” she told him. “Suppose they want to buy exactly the same amount of ice at the same price as before. But they want it delivered in smaller pieces twice weekly instead of once.”
    “Then we wouldn’t do it,” Rome said.
    He couldn’t imagine what this had