The mist from the fountain blew cool against his hot cheeks. The water
which old Neptune poured from his shell flashed white under the stars.
"Let her ask for it----" George's laugh was light.
It was that laugh which made Randy see red. He caught George's wrists
suddenly in his hands. "Drop it."
George stopped laughing. "Let her ask for it," he said again.
Randy twisted the wrists. It was a cruel trick. But his Indian blood was
uppermost.
"Drop it," he said, with another twist, and the fan fell.
But Randy was not satisfied. "Do you think," he said, "that I am through
with you? What you need is tar and feathers, but failing that----" he
did not finish his sentence. He caught George around the body and began
to push him back towards the fountain.
George fought doggedly--but Randy was strong with the muscular strength
of youth and months of military training.
"I'll kill you for this," George kept saying.
"No," said Randy, conserving his breath, "they don't--do
it--in--these--days----"
He had Dalton now at the rim and with a final effort of strength he
lifted him--there was a splash, and into the deeps of the great basin
went George, while the bronze Neptune, and the bronze dolphins, and the
nymphs with flowing hair, splashed and spouted a welcoming chorus that
drowned his cry!
Randy, head up, eyes shining, marched into the house and had a servant
brush him off and powder a scratch on his chin; then he went down-stairs
to the Hunt Room and strode across the room until he came to where Becky
sat in her corner.
"I found your fan," he told her, and laid it, a blaze of lovely color,
on the table in front of her.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WHISTLING SALLY
I
Becky, as she journeyed towards the north, had carried with her a vision
of a new and rather disturbing Randy--a Randy who, striding across the
Hunt Room with high-held head, had delivered her fan, and had, later,
asked for an explanation.
"How did he get it, Becky?"
She had told him.
"Why didn't you tell me when I came back and said I would go for it?"
"I was afraid he might still be there."
"Well?"
"And that something might happen."
Something had happened later by the fountain. But Randy did not speak of
it. "I saw the fan in his hand and asked for it," grimly, "and he gave
it to me----"
On the night before she went away, Randy had said, "I can't tell you all
that you mean to me, Becky, and I am not going to try. But I am yours
always--remember that----" He had kissed her hand and held it for a
moment against his heart. Then he had left her, and Becky had wanted to
call him back and say something that she felt had been left unsaid, but
had found that she could not.
Admiral Meredith met his granddaughter in New York, and the rest of the
trip was made with him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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