Quick Action. Chambers Robert William

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СКАЧАТЬ Miami in the Orange Puppy, and drank too many swizzles and so forth, et cetera.

      Having accomplished this, he returned to the wharf, put the Orange Puppy into commission, hoisted sail, and squared away for Matanzas Inlet, finding himself too weak-minded to go home by a more direct route.

      He had been on his monthly pilgrimage to Miami, and was homeward bound noisily, using his auxiliary power so that silence should not descend upon him too abruptly. He had been, for half an hour now, immersed in a species of solitaire known as The Idiot's Delight, when he caught himself cheating himself, and indignantly scattered the pack to the four winds – three of which, however, were not blowing. One card, the deuce of hearts, fluttered seaward like a white butterfly. Beyond it he caught sight of another white speck, shining like a gull's breast.

      It was a big yacht steaming in from the open sea; and her bill of lading included Miss Cassillis and Willowmere. But Jones could not know that. So he merely blinked at the distant Chihuahua, yawned, flipped the last card overboard, and swung the Orange Puppy into the inlet, which brimmed rather peacefully, the tide being nearly at flood.

      Far away on the deck of the Chihuahua the quick-fire racket of Jones's auxiliary was amazingly audible. Miss Cassillis, from her deck-chair, could see the Orange Puppy, a fleck of glimmering white across a sapphire sea. How was she to divine that one Delancy Jones was aboard of her? All she saw when the two boats came near each other was a noisy little craft progressing toward the lagoon, emitting an earsplitting racket; and a tall, lank young man clad in flannels lounging at the tiller and smoking a cigarette.

      Around her on the snowy deck were disposed the guests of her parents, mostly corpulent, swizzles at every elbow, gracefully relaxing after a morning devoted to arduous idleness. The Victor on deck, which had furnished the incentive to her turkey-trotting with Lord Willowmere, was still exuding a syncopated melody. Across the water, Jones heard it and stood looking at the great yacht as the Orange Puppy kicked her way through the intensely blue water under an azure sky.

      Willowmere lounged over to the rail and gazed wearily at the sand dunes and palmettos. Presently Miss Cassillis slipped from her deck-chair to her white-shod feet, and walked over to where he stood. He said something about the possibilities of "havin' a bit of shootin'," with a vague wave of his highly-coloured hand toward the palmetto forests beyond the lagoon.

      If the girl heard him she made no comment. After a while, as the distance between the Chihuahua and the Orange Puppy lengthened, she levelled her sea glasses at the latter craft, and found that the young man at the helm was also examining her through his binoculars.

      While she inspected him, several unrelated ideas passed through her head; she thought he was very much sunburned and that his hatless head was attractive, with its short yellow hair crisped by the sun. Without any particular reason, apparently, she recollected a young man she had seen the winter before, striding down the wintry avenue about his business. He might have been this young man for all she knew. Like the other, this one wore yellow hair. Then, with no logic in the sequence of her thoughts, suddenly the memory of how she had run away when she was nine years old set her pulses beating, filling her heart with the strange, wistful, thrilling, overwhelming longing which she had supposed would never again assail her, now that she was engaged to be married. And once more the soft fire burned in her cheeks.

      "Stirrups," she said, scarcely knowing what she was saying, "I don't think I'll marry you after all. It's just occurred to me."

      "Oh, I say!" protested Willowmere languidly, never for a moment mistrusting that the point of her remark was buried in some species of American humour. He always submitted to American humour. There was nothing else to do, except to understand it.

      "Stirrups, dear?"

      "What?"

      "You're very pink and healthy, aren't you?"

      He shrugged his accustomed shrug of resignation.

      "Oh, I say – come, now – " he murmured, lighting a cigarette.

      "What a horrid smash there would be if I didn't make good, wouldn't there, Stirrups?" She mused, her blue eyes resting on him, too coldly.

      "Rather," he replied, comfortably settling his arms on the rail.

      "It might happen, you know. Suppose I fell overboard?"

      "Fish you out, ducky."

      "Suppose I – ran away?"

      "Ow."

      "What would you do, Stirrups? Why, you'd go back to town and try to pick another winner. Wouldn't you?"

      He laughed.

      "Naturally that is what you would do, isn't it?" She considered him curiously for a moment, then smiled. "How funny!" she said, almost breathlessly.

      "Rather," he murmured, and flicked his cigarette overboard.

      The Orange Puppy had disappeared beyond the thicket of palmettos across the point. The air was very warm and still.

      Her father waddled forward presently, wearing the impressive summer regalia of a commodore in the Siwanois Yacht Club. His daughter's blue eyes rested on the portly waistline of her parent – then on his fluffy chop-whiskers. A vacant, hunted look came into her eyes.

      "Father," she said almost listlessly, "I'm going to run away again."

      "When do you start?" inquired that facetious man.

      "Now, I think. What is there over there?" – turning her face again toward the distant lagoon, with its endless forests of water-oak, cedar, and palmetto.

      "Over there," said her father, "reside several species of snakes and alligators. Also other reptiles, a number of birds, and animals, and much microbic mud."

      She bit her lip. "I see," she said, nodding.

      Willowmere said: "We should find some shootin' along the lagoon. Look at the ducks."

      Mr. Cassillis yawned; he had eaten too heavily of duck to be interested. Very thoughtfully he presented himself with a cigar, turned it over and over between his soft fingers, and yawned again. Then, nodding solemnly as though in emphasis of a profound idea of which he had just been happily delivered, he waddled slowly back along the deck.

      His daughter looked after him until he disappeared; gazed around her at the dawdling assortment of guests aboard, then lifted her quiet eyes to Willowmere.

      "Ducky," she said, "I can't stand it. I'm going to run away."

      "Come on, then," he said, linking his arm in hers.

      The Victor still exuded the Tango.

      She hesitated. Then freeing herself:

      "Oh, not with you, Stirrups! I wish to go away somewhere entirely alone. Could you understand?" she added wistfully.

      He stifled a yawn. American humour bored him excessively.

      "You'll be back in a day or two?" he inquired. And laughed violently when the subtlety of his own wit struck him.

      "In a day or two or not at all. Good-bye, Stirrups."

      "Bye."

      The sun blazed on her coppery hair and on the white skin that never burned, as she walked slowly СКАЧАТЬ