quite remarkable and most charming.”
“She’s my half-sister[47],” Ernestine said, “But she’s so different. She’s different from any girl I ever knew—though she isn’t exactly a girl. She’s thirty-eight, you know—”
“Oh,” Graham whispered.
The pretty young blonde looked at him in surprise and bewilderment.
“Yes!” she cried. “You will find we are very frank here. Everybody knows Paula’s age. She tells it herself. I’m eighteen—so, there. And now, how old are you?”
“As old as Dick,” he replied promptly.
“And he’s forty,” she laughed triumphantly. “Are you going to swim? The water will be dreadfully cold.”
Graham shook his head. “I’m going to ride with Dick.”
“Oh,” she protested, “some of his eternal green manures, or hillside terracing, or watering.”
“But he said something about swimming at five.”
Her face brightened joyously.
“Then we’ll meet at the pool. Paula said at five, too.”
As they parted under a long arcade, where his way led to the tower room for a change into riding clothes, she stopped suddenly and called:
“Oh, Mr. Graham.”
He turned obediently.
“You really must not fall in love with Paula, you know.”
“I shall be very, very careful,” he said solemnly, although there was a twinkle in his eye as he concluded.
Nevertheless, as he went on to his room, he admitted to himself that the Paula Forrest charm had already reached him. He would prefer to ride with her than with his old friend Dick.
As he emerged from the house, he looked eagerly for his hostess. Only Dick was there, and the stableman[48]. Dick pointed out her horse.
“I don’t know her plans,” he said. “She hasn’t shown up yet, but at any rate[49] she’ll be swimming later. We’ll meet her then.”
Graham appreciated and enjoyed the ride. Then they went to the pool.
7
“Have you—of course, you have,” said Paula. “learned to win through an undertow[50]?”
“Yes, I have,” Graham answered, looking at her cheeks. Thirty-eight! He wondered if Ernestine had lied. Paula Forrest did not look twenty-eight. Her skin was the skin of a girl, with all the delicate, fine-pored and thin transparency of the skin of a girl.
“By not fighting the undertow,” she went on. “By yielding to its down-drag and out-drag, and working with it to reach air again. Dick taught me that trick.”
“Will you sport a bet[51], Evan?” Dick Forrest queried.
“I want to hear the terms of it first,” was the answer.
“Cigars against cigars that you can’t catch Paula in the pool inside ten minutes—no, inside five, for I remember you’re an excellent swimmer.”
“Oh, give him a chance, Dick,” Paula cried generously. “Ten minutes will worry him.”
“But you don’t know him,” Dick argued. “And you don’t value my cigars. I tell you he is a good swimmer.”
“Perhaps I’ll reconsider. Tell me his history and prizes.”
“I’ll just tell you one thing. It was in 1892. He did forty miles in forty-five hours, and only he and one other reached the land. And they were all aborigines. He was the only white man; and everybody drowned …”
“I thought you said there was one other?” Paula interrupted.
“She was a woman,” Dick answered.
“And the woman was then a white woman?” Paula insisted.
Graham looked quickly at her, and although she had asked the question of her husband, her head turned to the turn of his head. Graham answered:
“She was an aborigine.”
“A queen, if you please,” Dick said. “A queen of the ancient tribe. She was Queen of Huahoa[52].”
“How did she succeed?” Paula asked. “Or did you help her?”
“I rather think we helped each other toward the end,” Graham replied. “We were both terribly tired. We reached the land at sunset. We slept where we crawled out of the water. Next morning’s sun burnt us awake, and we crept into the shade of some wild bananas, found fresh water, and went to sleep again. Next I awoke it was night. I took another drink, and slept through till morning. She was still asleep when the aborigines found us.”
“She must be forever grateful,” Paula assumed, looking directly at Graham. “Don’t tell me she wasn’t young, wasn’t beautiful, wasn’t a golden young goddess.”
“Her mother was the Queen of Huahoa,” Graham answered. “Her father was an English gentleman. They were dead at the time of the swim, and Nomare[53] was queen herself. Yes, she was young. She was beautiful as any woman anywhere in the world may be beautiful. Thanks to her father’s skin, she was not golden brown. But you’ve heard the story undoubtedly—”
He looked at Dick, who shook his head.
“You’ll tell me the rest of the story some time,” Paula said.
“Dick knows it. I don’t understand why he hasn’t told you.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Perhaps because he’s never had the time.”
Graham laughed.
“I was once a king of the cannibal isles, or of a paradise of a Polynesian isle[54]”.
“I see”, Paula waited for Dick to help her off.
8
“Cigars! And boxes of candy, gloves, or anything,” Ernestine said, smiling.
“But I don’t know Mrs. Forrest’s records, either,” Graham protested. “However, if in five minutes—”
“Ten minutes,” Paula said, “and to start from opposite ends of the pool. Is that fair? If you touch me, you win.”
Graham
half-sister – сводная сестра
stable-man – конюх
at any rate – во всяком случае
to win through an undertow – одолевать высокую волну, ныряя под неё
sport a bet – держать пари
Queen of Huahoa – королева острова Хуахоа
Nomare – Номаре
Polynesian isle – полинезийский остров
