poured himself a glass into the glass which was much better than any hotel should use which was faced with breakage.
“Here’s to you, Daughter,” he said. “You beauty and lovely. Do you know, that, among other things, you smell good always? You smell wonderfully even in a high wind or under a blanket or kissing goodnight. You know almost no one does, and you don’t use scent.”
She looked at him from the portrait and said nothing.
“The hell with it,” he said. “I’m not going to talk to a picture.”
What do you think went wrong tonight? he thought.
Me, I guess. Well I will try to be a good boy tomorrow all day; starting at first light.
“Daughter,” he said, and he was talking to her, and not to a picture now. “Please know I love you and that I wish to be delicate and good. And please stay with me always now.”
The picture was the same.
The Colonel took out the emeralds from his pocket, and looked at them, feeling them slide, cold and yet warm, as they take warmth, and as all good stones have warmth, from his bad hand into his good hand.
I should have put these in an envelope and locked them up, he thought. But what the effing security is there better than I can give them? I have to get these back to you fast, Daughter.
It was fun, though. And they’re not worth more than a quarter of a million. What I would make in four hundred years. Have to check that figure.
