Читать книгу Six Days - Glyn Elinor - Страница 6
ОглавлениеTHE HUNTRESS
David Lamont at this stage was not really interested in Laline Lester. In him there was a Pan-like spirit of teasing, and it had given him a sort of schoolboy pleasure to be able to get a rise out of her in Washington, that was all. She appeared a product of the present day’s lovely, spoilt, over-indulged young womanhood, who could be of no interest to any thinking man, except in one aspect, and he was much too busy to bother with such things at the moment.
He had not even remembered her invitation during the few days he had been in New York, and, knowing he would see Jack Lumley on the Olympic, he had not concerned himself about him either.
Therefore, as he sat in the verandah drinking his coffee that first evening out, he was asking his inner consciousness why the sight of his old friend and the two ladies had given him some sense of vague irritation.
“What animals we are, after all,” he said to himself. “I suppose it is because the girl is so darned good to look at, the hunting instinct gets up in me, to wrest her from old Jack!” Then he frowned. He was to avoid new acquaintances, and not even consort much with old ones.
They would be coming in certainly in a few minutes, and the verandah of the restaurant was not large enough for him to keep aloof from such a friend as Jack Lumley. So, reluctantly, he finished his coffee and escaped to the smoking lounge, and that night the interest and irritation went off soon, and he became immersed in the book on the history of the country which was to be his destination, which he had brought with him, and so forgot that there were such things as exquisite girls and old friends until after the two ladies had retired to their state-rooms much later. Jack came in alone, and found him.
“David! So you are here, after all?”
“Why, yes. I was waiting until you weren’t a squire of dames, old man. I am fed up with the ubiquitous females of my own country!” And he laughed irritably.
A cloud came into Jack’s mild blue eyes. He did not like to hear his goddess included in this category.
“Miss Lester and her aunt are two of the most delightful people one could meet,” he announced a trifle stiffly.
“Granted.”
“Mrs. Greening has taken my cousin’s place in Kent, near Dover—you know Channings Priory—and they are going there for the summer, after they have done Paris and London.”
“They will fill the house with inappropriate guests, and drive the servants all wild, but I suppose they’ll pay about double the rent they are even asked for!”
Jack laughed now, as he sat down and lit a cigarette.
“You are in the devil of a bad temper, David! What’s up?—and what are you over for this time?”
“Oh, just for a whiff of Paris. And I’ve got to see my tailor in London. Curious how the very best of them lose their cut when they migrate.”
Then they talked of sport for half an hour. David had hunted for a season in Leicestershire before the War.
“So you won’t make a fourth at our little table of three for meals, David?” Jack laughed as they were turning in.
“No, I won’t! I am on board to work—and rest! Good night!”
Laline Lester woke rather late the next day, with a fixed determination in her mind—the conquest of Major Lamont. Not, she told herself, that he attracted her in the very least, but just to show him that he could not put over any of that indifference stunt on her. Men were her natural servants, and she did not mean to stand insubordination from one of them.
She was so glad that she had had this lovely trousseau of steamer clothes. A change for every day of the six days, and each tweed or woolly costume and great, enveloping fur-trimmed wrap more becoming than the last! This morning she would wear the mauve wool shot with grey, and she would tuck in a bunch of Parma violets. (Countless boxes of flowers reposed in the chilled chamber waiting to be brought out fresh for each day of the whole voyage.)
What a mercy it was not rough, because, after all, since she had never been on the ocean before, she could not be sure what effect it might have upon her.
Jack had assured her that their chairs were in the very best position, out of draughts and on the lee side.
She would not wait for her aunt, who had the state-room next door, with the bathroom between. She would send for Celestine at once and get up directly she had eaten her breakfast. Major Lamont must certainly take exercise, and Jack would, in consequence, find him during the morning. And then they would meet whether he liked it or not.
Jack’s note came at that moment.
“A divine sun! I will wait for you at the top of the stairs by the lift.—Jack.”
And in less than an hour she stood beside him, an entirely bewitching picture in the mauve and grey suit, her adorable feet in the neatest of grey suede shoes and immaculate silk stockings. She seemed as fresh as the violets tucked into her belt, and full of joyous anticipation.
Fond love suffused Captain Lumley’s eyes. Everything was arranged for her when they reached the chairs—rugs and cushions—and the deck stewards were just bringing round the chicken broth.
“Why, it is eleven o’clock,” Laline said.
“I think we ought to walk,” Jack remarked. “You can sleep all the afternoon.”
There was no Major Lamont in sight! A walk and a thorough investigation of the geography of the ship would be an excellent thing.
Many eyes followed the pair with interest and admiration as the usual tramp began. Laline was so radiant a being, with that apple blossom skin and golden hair. The pink in her cheeks was clear as a wild rose and deepened in the soft wind. But they had been round and round the deck four times, and not a sight of any very tall, black-haired American gentleman did they see.
He could not surely be sleeping still. He was not sleeping; he was striding the boat above them. And when at last Laline suggested that she wanted to be taken up there and David caught sight of them advancing in his direction, it seemed that a meeting was inevitable.
He quickened his pace as though upon some special errand, and when they did come face to face he bowed and would have passed, but Laline stopped and held out her hand.
“Why, what a surprise, Major Lamont! You going to Europe, too?”
“Yes. The call of the cafés in the Bois has lured me.”
His annoyance at having been caught, when to avoid them he had deliberately abandoned his usual ocean habit of putting in some good miles on A deck before lunch, to mount to the boat deck where the space was more cramped made his voice rather acid.
The girl was damnably pretty here in the morning light, and her eyes were full of a challenge; and the blood ran faster in David Lamont’s veins than is usual with his compatriots obsessed with business.
“Come and trot with us, you old bear,” Jack said. “Miss Lester does not know any ocean liner, and I have never been on a White Star before. But you know the ropes—show us round.”
David gave his old friend’s arm a nasty tweak, but he had to turn with them and talk lightly, as travellers do.
Laline showed herself intelligent, and did not ask too many feminine and foolish questions. She was gay as a young lark, and endeavored to draw Major Lamont into a controversy, but he remained taciturn, and when they had explored the whole of the boat deck he stopped near the companion ladder.
“You can’t get lost now,” he rather growled. “I am going to see how the run is,” and without more ado he left them.
“What a difficult man!” Miss Lester pouted. “He’s as sure of himself and as disagreeable and gruff as an Englishman!”
Jack laughed, “Thanks!”
“Oh! well, I don’t mean you; you’re different.”
Down in her heart she was exceedingly annoyed, and for the first time not quite sure of herself.
David Lamont, as he gained the smoking-room, was annoyed, too, for he also did not feel quite on firm ground. Salt air, May sunshine, blue sea, grey eyes, and pink velvet cheeks, to say nothing of a cupid’s bow cherry mouth that was not painted, were upsetting factors!
He said the word “Garcia” to himself. He was carrying a message to Garcia! Confound the girl! He had not felt so attracted since the hot flirtation he had had with Lady Cristobel Agincourt in the spring of 1919, when he was with the Peace Conference. He had emerged from that successfully, and she had married a rich shipowner from Hull, called Dobbs! Both girls, he felt, were the product of their separate countries’ ultracivilization—and did not really amount to a row of pins. Again, confound the hunting instinct!
At an idle moment he would not have resisted the frivolous pleasure of an affair with Laline Lester. He allowed himself outings about once in three years. But now anything which could draw ten minutes of his thoughts away from the work in hand must be refused, and it was sheer hard luck that this strong temptation had been thrown across his path!
He did not emerge until luncheon, and then he came into the restaurant so late that the other party were almost leaving. They nodded, and then David began ordering his food in his casual way of indifference, which Laline so resented.
Lots of Englishmen that she had met in Washington were washouts, but some nice and some stupid; they mostly had that air, though, and even if it was insubordinate it could be excused, and even admired, in foreigners; but for one of her own nation to dare to get by with it was more than she could stand! Major Lamont should be annihilated and rendered the merest slave to her whims!
Now, she must use her ’cute business sense, inherited from that successful father of hers and devise a plan for this man’s subjection. So she passed David’s table as they went out without ever looking at him, and went and allowed herself to be tucked up in her chair by Jack, and then pretended to go to sleep, and finally really fell asleep, before Major Lamont came out to pace with Judge Whitmore whom he had chanced upon.
And as he passed and re-passed, the most insane desire flooded him to go over and kiss those curly golden-brown eyelashes and crush the little fragile body in his strong arms.
So a scowl settled upon his stern face, and even Jack, who joined him in his tramp, did not dare to chaff him.
That night at dinner he felt it prudent to ask a companion to share his meal, and the old Judge and he discussed international politics, and he succeeded in banishing all thought of the other party from his mind.
Laline was burning with fury. It could not possibly be that he was really unattracted by her? He must be only acting. Whose will would prove the strongest?
