Passionate Choice

Chapter 7.12

"No," Selena said, coolly. "I'm not going to do it. As soon as it can be arranged I'm leaving Sanada and going to St. Thomas." She glanced at Heather, suppressing an expression of mixed surprise and triumph in the woman's face, that was immediately changed to one it regret. "Perhaps you can tell me how I can do that?" she added.

"Be glad to," replied Heather.

"But you can't go. I forbid you to go," Ben shouted and both Selena and Heather turned to him. He had swung both legs off the lounger abs was glaring at Selena.

"Forbid me?" she exclaimed angrily, all her senses of feminism aroused by such blatant male arrogance. "Neither you nor any other person has the right to forbid me,"

"I do. I'm head of the department in which you are work and I'm also going to marry you, he retorted.

"No, you're not. Not any more. I'm resigning from my position in the department right now. I'll let you have it in writing as soon as I can put pen to paper."

"But what about your doctorate?" He spluttered, staring at her as if she been transformed into some stranger from outer space.

"To hell with that!" she exploded, taking an example from Keith's way of speaking. "And I'm certainly not going to marry a man who thinks he can forbid me from what I want to do. As someone recently pointed out to me, marriage between you and me would be most unsuitable."

"It was me," said Heather with a little cri of triumphant laughter. "I pointed it out to Selena. I pointed it out to you too, Ben, dear. But don't feel too badly about it. You need someone to look after you, who'll be around cooking a meal for you when you come home or down from cloud nine wherever you scholars spend your time. Someone like me."

"I don't understand, Selena," Ben bleated. "You can't do this to me."

"That's the problem. You never have understood me. We belong to different generations between which the gap is very wide," she explained; her anger fading and sympathy for hm taking its place. "The only bridge across that gap had been our mutual interest in history and archeology. And that isn't enough. I realize that now. And I think you do, too, in your heart."

"But I love you, Selena," he argued.

"No. I don't think you do and I don't love you. We admire and respect each other's intellectual ability, that's all. We would both be very unhappy if we were to marry. As Heather says you need someone to provide your meals on time when you've finished studying and thinking, someone who will listen and not argue with you; someone to relax with and be comfortable with."

He stared at her for a few seconds and the. Raised his shoulders in slow shrug. "Perhaps you're right," he admitted. "But I wish you'd stay and do that diving, bring up those artefacts."

"No. It's better that I leave, make a clean break. Gary is pretty good. He's worked on searching wrecks of Spanish ships. All you have to do is tell him what to look for and what to bring up."

"But there's all the arranging and dating to do, the cataloguing," he complained.

"Well, you'll just have to do that yourself, won't you?" she replied lightly. "You'll have the tone while you're resting your ankle, won't he, Heather?"

"Sure he will," said Heather. "But you won't be able to get away until tomorrow. The mail-boat comes in then from Roadtown. You can go back there on it, and from there you can catch another ferry to St. Thomas. I'll drive you in the village in the morning."

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