Читать книгу The Iron Mistress - Paul Iselin Wellman - Страница 38
2
Оглавление“How long we stay here, Jim?”
Nez Coupé cocked his scarred head to one side like a terrier.
“You getting tired of New Orleans?”
“Tired? No. Me, I like it plenty here. Fine place, this. But your folks—they want to find out pretty quick, no?”
“I haven’t finished my business.”
“We been here since week tomorrow——”
“I tell you, I’ve got to have more time!”
The Cajun’s shoulders went up in a shrug. “All right, Jim. Just what you think. Big dance at French Market tonight. I make lots of fun—me.” He swaggered out of the room.
Bowie scowled at the floor. Nez Coupé was perfectly right: he was not attending to his responsibilities. So completely was he immersed in matters having nothing to do with the errand on which his brothers had trusted him, that he had not even paid a second business call on Janos Parisot. The thought sickened and oppressed him.
Then he went back to thinking about Judalon de Bornay, going over every episode of the previous evening, and trying to interpret every action, word and look of hers in relation to himself. At times he tried to chill the hope in him by savagely confronting the facts. How could a young lady of her station and training think seriously even once of a man like himself? But then he remembered the dizzying evidences of friendliness she had given him, and how she had favored him over all the others. He remembered also the bitter faces of those confident young Creole bucks ... Narcisse said he had made enemies.
Judalon ... you must call me Judalon ... and I shall call you James ... no, Jim ...
Narcisse’s warning thrust itself into his mind: She can make herself a perilous creature for a susceptible man ...
He was by no means susceptible. He had known many girls, and never had his head turned by them: he could tell the pretense from the sincere. At twenty-two a man should know his own mind.
With that he rose, nervous as a hunting dog, his young head swirling, wondering when he would see her again. He was face to face with something against which his strength could not avail him. Social barriers. Barriers of money. Barriers of blood. A gulf, invisible but terribly real, and more difficult to cross than any deep and stormy gulf of the ocean.
He was still pacing when Audubon and Narcisse burst into the room.
