A pretty young girl appeared in front of Indy. She was carrying a bundle of books and was pretending to look studious, efficient. Indy brightened when he saw her.
"Professor Jones," she was saying.
"Uh-"
"I was hoping we could have a conference," she said shyly, glancing at Marcus Brody.
"Yeah, sure, sure, Susan, I know I said we'd talk."
Marcus Brody said, "Not now. Not now, Indiana." And he turned to the girl. "Professor Jones has an important conference to attend, my dear. Why don't you call him later?"
"Yeah," Indy mumbled. "I'll be back at noon."
The girl smiled in a disappointed way, then drifted off along the corridor. Indy watched her go, admiring her legs, the roundness of the calves, the slender ankles. He felt Brody tug at his sleeve.
"Pretty. Up to your usual standards, Indiana. But later. Okay?"
"Later," Indy said, looking reluctantly away from the girl.
...
The girl, Susan, said, "I really hope I didn't embarrass you when you were with Brody. I mean, I was so . . . obvious."
"You weren't obvious," Indy said.
They were sitting together in the cluttered living room of Indy's small frame house. The room was filled with souvenirs of trips, of digs, restored clay vessels and tiny statues and fragments of pottery and maps and globes-as cluttered, he sometimes thought, as my life.
The girl drew her knees up, hugging them, laying her face down against them. Like a cat, he thought. A tiny contented cat.
"I love this room," she said. "I love the whole house ... but this room especially."
Indy got up from the sofa and, hands in his pockets, walked around the room. The girl, for some reason, was more of an intrusion than she should have been. Sometimes when she spoke he tuned her out. He heard only the noise of her voice and not the meaning of her words. He poured himself a drink, sipped it, swallowed; it burned in his chest-a good burning, like a small sun glowing down there.
Susan said, "You seem so distant tonight, Indy."
"Distant?"
"You've got something on your mind. I don't know." She shrugged.
He walked to the radio, turned it on, barely listening to the drone of someone making a pitch for Maxwell House. The girl changed the station and then there was dance-band music. Distant, he thought.
Farther than you could dream. Miles away. Oceans and continents and centuries. He was suddenly thinking about Ravenwood, about the last conversation they'd had, the old man's terrible storm, his wrath. When he listened to the echoes of those voices, he felt sad, disappointed in himself; he'd taken some fragile trust and shattered it.
Marion's infatuated with you, and you took advantage of that. You're twenty-eight, presumably a grown man, and you've taken advantage of a young girl's brainless infatuation and twisted it to suit your own purpose just because she thinks she's in love with you.
Susan said, "If you want me to leave, Indy, I will. If you want to be alone, I'll understand."
"It's okay. Really. Stay."
There was a knock on the door; the porch creaked.
Indy moved out of the living room along the hallway and saw Marcus Brody outside. He was smiling a secretive smile, as if he had news he wanted to linger over, savor for as long as he could.
"Marcus," Indy said. "I wasn't expecting you."
"I think you were," Brody said, pushing the screen door.
"We'll go in the study," Indy said.
"What's wrong with the living room?"
"Company."
"Ah. What else?"
