Nina and Madge were lying in each other’s arms, breathing easily, and looking extraordinarily well. Beyond them, Sturgess lay like a log, his clean-cut, somewhat cynical features relaxed in a smile. It was a pity to rouse him, but Maseden saw by his watch that they had enjoyed nine hours of real repose, and, as the weather was fine again and there was a promise of sunshine, it behooved them to be up and doing.
So he shook his compatriot gently by the shoulder, and Sturgess was awake instantly.
“Gosh!” he said, gazing at a patch of blue sky overhead. “I was just ordering clams on ice in Louis Martin’s. It must have been a memory of those oysters.”
Maseden, by a gesture, warned him not to speak loudly, whereupon Sturgess sat up, saw the two girls, grinned, and stole quietly after his companion.
“Say,” he confided, when at a safe distance, “they’re the limit, aren’t they?”
“They’re all right, so far as girls go,” agreed Maseden.
“Oh, come off your perch! Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? If we win through I’m going to marry Madge, or I’ll know the reason why, and if you have half the gumption we credit you with you’ll tack on to sister Nina as soon as you’ve shunted that sporty young person who grabbed you at the cannon’s mouth in Cartagena.”
“Will you oblige me by not talking such damn nonsense?” growled Maseden, blazing into sudden and incomprehensible wrath.
“Calm yourself, hidalgo!” came the quiet answer. “Sorry if I’ve butted in on your private affairs. Having fixed things for myself, I thought I’d do you a good turn, too. That’s all.”
“Don’t you realize that you are hardly playing the game by even hinting at such possibilities in present conditions?”