"Because I don't like him, I suppose. I never get on very well with poets at any time. They always seem to belong to the cherub family,—cut off at the shoulders, I mean, and surrounded with Christmas card clouds."
Franklin laughed again. "You should see him whipping a trout stream or crawling after deer."
"Mrs. Keene's in the next room," said Mrs. Larpent, warningly. Would he take the hint and be a little less sun-parlorish?
"Is she? By Jove, yes. I mustn't make such a row. I wouldn't disturb her for anything."
No, he had missed it. She crossed one leg over the other. Rather more than a slim, white ankle showed. Well, the night was all in front of them. "It was a horrid trick, getting rid of us like that. I had just settled down on the Galatea and was preparing to have the first really happy time of my life. You alone among men have it in your power to do that for me, Pelham." She felt that she was hurrying a little.
"Well, the Galatea can be at your service again. Not yet though, I'm afraid. Malcolm and I have a plan in the back of our heads." He got up and heaved a sigh and walked about. Beatrix came back into his head at the mention of the Galatea. He could see her leaning against the starboard rail with the sun on her golden head and her chin held high. He would always be able to see that picture, thank God!
"Tell me about it," said Mrs. Larpent, hoping that, after all, she had not hurried too fast and that it was not her remark that made him restless. Any other man almost would have caught her meaning.
"Not yet," he said. "It isn't sufficiently formed." And then he lit a cigarette and sat down again, with a chuckle. "I can't fancy you in this one-eyed hole. I thought, of course, that you'd stay the night here and then take the first possible train to New York."
"Did you think what would happen to me after that?"
"No, I confess I didn't. Southampton, or some such place. Society on the beach. You said something about Southampton, in the summer when you had mercy on me that time and we did the theatres. You were awfully good to me then."