Читать книгу High Fences - Grace S. Richmond - Страница 8

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David discovers how mistaken one can be. It just shows that one should always take a chance on going where one doesn't wish to go--especially a writer, with a notebook concealed somewhere about him.

"Odd little thing, isn't she?" whispered the gay neighbor on David's left. She wore vivid green and gold, much lower cut than the black lace which had survived a thousand and one nights--though the lace was no high-necked gown.

"Odd? Who, please?" inquired David cautiously. Of course she couldn't be speaking like that of anyone so near by as his right-hand neighbor.

"Absolutely unique. R.C., I mean, of course." The whisper came closer and a bare shoulder, much more rich in abundance than that one on his right, touched his confidentially.

"R. C.?"

"Oh, hush--don't be stupid, David." David--and she had never seen him before to-night. Oh, well, he was from the country, where they went slower in these matters of acquaintance.

"Am I stupid? Sorry. You'll have to remember I'm a stranger."

"I mean," went on the whisper, slightly slurred, because the whisperer had by this time had too much to eat and more to drink, "your hostess's sister. Odd as they make 'em. Not one of us, at all, of course. I simply can't talk to her. Nothing to say. Suppose she's thinking up her funny little poems and things? They do say she always has a notebook fastened to her somewhere, takes down what people say. Liable to see any little gem of speech of your own in print to-morrow. Better look out what you give her."

The elbow nudged him a trifle. His companion's cheek was very roseate; she laughed into his face.

For a minute longer David was bewildered. R. C. Takes things down you say--see 'em in print to-morrow. Little White Shoulder was a writer then--some sort of writer. The familiar initials, R. C.--Ross Collins sometimes used them instead of a full signature, but they were usually recognized, just the same--these initials jumped at him. But Ross Collins was a man--he knew that. No, he didn't know it, he had just supposed it. It couldn't be--but of course it was, for his neighbor was going on, evidently much entertained by his denseness:

"I've always said people who write that sort of thing have to be odd. Don't even know how to have their hair done. Ever see anything so ridiculous as that curl? Ethel's terribly annoyed at it, but it was exactly like Ross to get herself up in some fantastic way, just to be different. I do think she's clever--fearfully clever--but that doesn't 'scuse eccentricity to the point of craziness. Personally, I----"

But David wasn't hearing much. So it was Ross Collins whose white shoulder was now turned away from him, and whom he must get back to as soon as he could possibly escape from his green-and-gold informant. It took a long time, and he had to be very nearly rude, in the end. But at last somebody spoke to her across the table, somebody else shouted with laughter in which she joined--and David slid a mile away from her as he turned toward the small figure on his right. At the same moment a pair of black-brown eyes--mere slits of eyes between their lashes--flashed round at his, and with a smile which lighted the small white face into actual brilliancy, Ross Collins said to him relievedly, and very much under her breath:

"Hurray!"

"Three cheers!" he responded, with such a grin that he might have been a small boy receiving a Christmas present which exactly suited him.

And of course it was just exactly then that a maid-servant--imported from outside for the evening--came to Ethel Cheney's shoulder with a message. Ethel, frowning smilingly, looked down the table at her sister, and sent the maid to Ross. Ross laid down her napkin, rose, without even a word of excuse to David, and slipped out of the room. She did not return.

"These professional people!" said Green and Gold in David's ear. "Suppose it was an assignment--or whatever they call it when a newspaper sends a reporter off to write up a murder. She's delighted, of course. She'd rather go anywhere on earth than to a party. Now, David, you'll have to be nice to me--you haven't anybody on your other side."

He certainly hadn't--except a man he didn't like beyond the gap Ross's empty chair had left. And what a gap it was! At least as wide as a church door, although she was so small who had filled it.