Quick Action Page 4

  III

  Young Jones, in wildest Florida, had never heard of it or of her, or ofher income. His own fortune amounted to six hundred dollars, and he hadbeen born in Brooklyn, and what his salary might be only he and theSmithsonian Institution knew.

  He was an industrious young man, no better than you or I, acceptingthankfully every opportunity for mischief which the Dead Lake regionafforded. No opportunities of that kind ever presenting themselves inthat region, he went once a month to Miami in the _Orange Puppy_, anddrank too many swizzles and so forth, et cetera.

  Having accomplished this, he returned to the wharf, put the _OrangePuppy_ into commission, hoisted sail, and squared away for MatanzasInlet, finding himself too weak-minded to go home by a more directroute.

  He had been on his monthly pilgrimage to Miami, and was homeward boundnoisily, using his auxiliary power so that silence should not descendupon him too abruptly. He had been, for half an hour now, immersed in aspecies of solitaire known as The Idiot's Delight, when he caughthimself cheating himself, and indignantly scattered the pack to the fourwinds--three of which, however, were not blowing. One card, the deuce ofhearts, fluttered seaward like a white butterfly. Beyond it he caughtsight of another white speck, shining like a gull's breast.

  It was a big yacht steaming in from the open sea; and her bill of ladingincluded Miss Cassillis and Willowmere. But Jones could not know that.So he merely blinked at the distant _Chihuahua_, yawned, flipped thelast card overboard, and swung the _Orange Puppy_ into the inlet, whichbrimmed rather peacefully, the tide being nearly at flood.

  Far away on the deck of the _Chihuahua_ the quick-fire racket of Jones'sauxiliary was amazingly audible. Miss Cassillis, from her deck-chair,could see the _Orange Puppy_, a fleck of glimmering white across asapphire sea. How was she to divine that one Delancy Jones was aboard ofher? All she saw when the two boats came near each other was a noisylittle craft progressing toward the lagoon, emitting an earsplittingracket; and a tall, lank young man clad in flannels lounging at thetiller and smoking a cigarette.

  Around her on the snowy deck were disposed the guests of her parents,mostly corpulent, swizzles at every elbow, gracefully relaxing after amorning devoted to arduous idleness. The Victor on deck, which hadfurnished the incentive to her turkey-trotting with Lord Willowmere, wasstill exuding a syncopated melody. Across the water, Jones heard it andstood looking at the great yacht as the _Orange Puppy_ kicked her waythrough the intensely blue water under an azure sky.

  Willowmere lounged over to the rail and gazed wearily at the sand dunesand palmettos. Presently Miss Cassillis slipped from her deck-chair toher white-shod feet, and walked over to where he stood. He saidsomething about the possibilities of "havin' a bit of shootin'," with avague wave of his highly-coloured hand toward the palmetto forestsbeyond the lagoon.

  If the girl heard him she made no comment. After a while, as thedistance between the _Chihuahua_ and the _Orange Puppy_ lengthened, shelevelled her sea glasses at the latter craft, and found that the youngman at the helm was also examining her through his binoculars.

  While she inspected him, several unrelated ideas passed through herhead; she thought he was very much sunburned and that his hatless headwas attractive, with its short yellow hair crisped by the sun. Withoutany particular reason, apparently, she recollected a young man she hadseen the winter before, striding down the wintry avenue about hisbusiness. He might have been this young man for all she knew. Like theother, this one wore yellow hair. Then, with no logic in the sequence ofher thoughts, suddenly the memory of how she had run away when she wasnine years old set her pulses beating, filling her heart with thestrange, wistful, thrilling, overwhelming longing which she had supposedwould never again assail her, now that she was engaged to be married.And once more the soft fire burned in her cheeks.

  "Stirrups," she said, scarcely knowing what she was saying, "I don'tthink I'll marry you after all. It's just occurred to me."

  "Oh, I say!" protested Willowmere languidly, never for a momentmistrusting that the point of her remark was buried in some species ofAmerican humour. He always submitted to American humour. There wasnothing else to do, except to understand it.

  "Stirrups, dear?"

  "What?"

  "You're very pink and healthy, aren't you?"

  He shrugged his accustomed shrug of resignation.

  "Oh, I say--come, now----" he murmured, lighting a cigarette.

  "What a horrid smash there would be if I didn't make good, wouldn'tthere, Stirrups?" She mused, her blue eyes resting on him, too coldly.

  "Rather," he replied, comfortably settling his arms on the rail.

  "It might happen, you know. Suppose I fell overboard?"

  "Fish you out, ducky."

  "Suppose I--ran away?"

  "Ow."

  "What would you do, Stirrups? Why, you'd go back to town and try topick another winner. Wouldn't you?"

  He laughed.

  "Naturally that is what you would do, isn't it?" She considered himcuriously for a moment, then smiled. "How funny!" she said, almostbreathlessly.

  "Rather," he murmured, and flicked his cigarette overboard.

  The _Orange Puppy_ had disappeared beyond the thicket of palmettosacross the point. The air was very warm and still.

  Her father waddled forward presently, wearing the impressive summerregalia of a commodore in the Siwanois Yacht Club. His daughter's blueeyes rested on the portly waistline of her parent--then on his fluffychop-whiskers. A vacant, hunted look came into her eyes.

  "Father," she said almost listlessly, "I'm going to run away again."

  "When do you start?" inquired that facetious man.

  "Now, I think. What is there over there?"--turning her face again towardthe distant lagoon, with its endless forests of water-oak, cedar, andpalmetto.

  "Over there," said her father, "reside several species of snakes andalligators. Also other reptiles, a number of birds, and animals, andmuch microbic mud."

  She bit her lip. "I see," she said, nodding.

  Willowmere said: "We should find some shootin' along the lagoon. Look atthe ducks."

  Mr. Cassillis yawned; he had eaten too heavily of duck to be interested.Very thoughtfully he presented himself with a cigar, turned it over andover between his soft fingers, and yawned again. Then, nodding solemnlyas though in emphasis of a profound idea of which he had just beenhappily delivered, he waddled slowly back along the deck.

  His daughter looked after him until he disappeared; gazed around her atthe dawdling assortment of guests aboard, then lifted her quiet eyes toWillowmere.

  "Ducky," she said, "I can't stand it. I'm going to run away."

  "Come on, then," he said, linking his arm in hers.

  The Victor still exuded the Tango.

  She hesitated. Then freeing herself:

  "Oh, not with you, Stirrups! I wish to go away somewhere entirely alone.Could you understand?" she added wistfully.

  He stifled a yawn. American humour bored him excessively.

  "You'll be back in a day or two?" he inquired. And laughed violentlywhen the subtlety of his own wit struck him.

  "In a day or two or not at all. Good-bye, Stirrups."

  "Bye."

  The sun blazed on her coppery hair and on the white skin that neverburned, as she walked slowly across the yacht's deck and disappearedbelow.

  While she was writing in her cabin, the _Chihuahua_ dropped her anchors.Miss Cassillis listened to the piping, the thud of feet on deck, therattle and distant sound of voices. Then she continued her note:

  I merely desire to run away. I don't know why, Mother, dear. But the longing to bolt has been incubating for many years. And now it's too strong to resist. I don't quite understand how it came to a crisis on deck just now, but I looked at Stirrups, whose skin is too pink, and at Father, who had lunched too sumptuously, and at the people on deck, all digesting in a row--and then at the green woods on shore, and the strip of white where a fai
ry surf was piling up foam into magic castles and snowy battlements, ephemeral, exquisite. And all at once it came over me that I must go.

  Don't be alarmed. I shall provision a deck canoe, take a tent, some rugs and books, and paddle into that lagoon. If you will just let me alone for two or three days, I promise I'll return safe and sound, and satisfied. For something has got to be done in regard to that longing of mine. But really, I think that if you and Father _won't_ understand, and if you send snooping people after me, I won't come back at all, and I'll never marry Stirrups. Please understand me, Mother, dear.

  CECIL.

  This effusion she pinned to her pillow, then rang for the steward andordered the canoe to be brought alongside, provisioned for a three days'shooting trip.

  So open, frank, and guileless were her orders that nobody who took themsuspected anything unusual; and in the full heat and glare of theafternoon siesta, when parents, fiance, and assorted guests were allasleep and in full process of digestion and the crew of the _Chihuahua_was drowsing from stem to stern, a brace of sailors innocently connivedat her escape, aided her into the canoe, and, doubting nothing, watchedher paddle away through the inlet, and into the distant lagoon, whichlay sparkling in golden and turquoise tints, set with palms like astupid picture in a child's geography.

  Later, the _Chihuahua_ fired a frantic gun. Later still, two boats leftthe yacht, commanded respectively by one angry parent and one fiance,profoundly bored.