“Don’t be afraid I’ll stay. I’m going for a walk on the front of the
island. That’s as far away as I can get; I’d go farther if I could.”
She passed out of the door and Stokes turned to the girl:
“There--that’s what I was afraid of. Some of the rest of them may come
in at any minute. We’ve got to get out of here, some place outside.”
“The Point--the summer-house. I’ll go down there now--you follow me.”
She ran to the entrance, he at her heels. Walking leisurely up the
path to the summer-house was Shine. She threw out her hands with a
distracted gesture and struck a foot on the floor in a frantic stamp.
Stokes smothered an oath. “Tell me here,” she implored, but he answered
with an imperative shake of the head.
“The garden.” She was half-way across the room before he caught her up,
and this time it was he who laid his hand on her arm:
“Sybil, have some sense. You’ll get us in wrong every way. You don’t
want any of these people to see us out there whispering together.
That’s just the place they’ll go while they’re waiting round for
supper. Listen now, get a hold on yourself. Jim’s safety is more
important than your anxiety. That photographer chap’s just strolling
round killing time; he’ll move on from there presently. Go up to your
room and wait. You can see the Point from your window. If he’s gone by
seven, come down and go along to the summer-house. I’ll watch too and
I’ll meet you there.”
She opened her lips for a last protest, then evidently seeing there
was nothing else for it, gave out a groaning “All right” and left the
room. He followed her, saw her mount the stairs, and walked out on the
balcony. It was exquisitely still, the colors paling, the pines black
and motionless as if painted on the orange sky. He could see the figure
of his wife moving slowly toward the ocean bluffs. A newspaper lay on a
table near him and he took it up, slumping down in his chair as one who
relinquishes himself to a regained interest, but he did not read.
VI
ANNE packed for a space, then gave it up. She couldn’t go on with it,
she wanted to be down-stairs, not lose one minute of the last evening
at Gull Island. Her spirits, oppressed by Joe’s behavior, began to
bubble again, foam up in sparkling effervescence. You couldn’t pack
clothes in a trunk when you felt like dancing and the hour was too
beautiful for belief and your lover might be waiting for you in the
garden. She slipped off her negligée and chose her most becoming dress,
leaf-green crêpe that made her look slim as a reed and turned her skin
to ivory. She smoothed the black satin of her hair and hung round her
neck the chain of green beads she had bought for a dollar but you’d
never guess it. And she figured in front of the glass, studying her
reflection this way and that, trying to see herself with new eyes and
judge if she was a girl a man might be proud of.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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