“Since I was eight—no, nine.”
“Do you look like her?”
“No. Joe—Margot’s dad—looked something like her. His hair was nearly black and he had brown eyes. She was nice. Used to take her hair down and let me play with it. Black.” He smiled, did not speak for minutes and then talked of Gurdy again, “He’s mighty nice to his father and mother. Eddie and Sadie are scared he’ll marry an actress on account of his bein’ in my office. Gurdy was teasin’ them last week—They came up to do some shopping. Said he’d got hold of a yellow headed stomach dancer. Called her some crazy French name.—My lord, haven’t things changed on the stage since we were kids! I remember when Ruth Saint Denis was doing her Hindoo dances first and people were kind of shocked. I dropped in one afternoon and the place was packed full of women. Heard this drawly kind of voice behind me and looked round. It was Mark Twain and Mr. Howells. Ruth did a dance without much on and the women all gabbled like fury. But they all applauded a lot. Mr. Howells was sort of bored. He said, ‘What are they making that fuss for, Sam?’ ‘Oh,’ old Clemens said, ‘they’re hoping the next dance’ll be dirtier so they can feel like Christians.’ My God, he was a wonder to look at!—Ever think how much good looks do help a man along?”
“I can’t think unless you fan me, Mark. My brain’s boiling. How many more miles to a bath?”
“Twenty.”
“I’ve always been fond of you,” said Olive, “but I never realized what a brave man you were! You work in this furnace? Fan me!”
The cottage stood on a slope of presentable lawn that ended in a pebbly shore. The motor rushed through a fir plantation, reached the Georgian portico and Olive gladly smelled salt wind rising from the water fading in sunset.
“There she is,” said Mark and whistled to a shape, black and tan against the sound, poised at the lip of a whitewashed pier. Margot came running and some men in bathsuits stared, deserted. The girl raced in a shimmer that reddened her legs to copper. Olive wondered if anything so alive, so gay existed elsewhere on this barbarous shore crushed by summer. Mark saw them happy, wiped his silly eyes and went down to chat in guarded grammar with the three young men from across the shallow bay. Inevitable that youngsters should come swimming and these were likeable fellows. Gurdy vouched for them. They slid soon like piebald seals into the water and swam off in a flurry of spray and bronze arms. Delicate wakes of fine bubbling spread on the surface. The wet heads grew small in this wide space of beryl. Again he watched irreproducible beauty.... It was right that the best makers of scenes wouldn’t paint the sea on back-drops. Let the people fancy it there below the vacancy of some open window. He must have the Cuban seas suggested thus in ‘Captain Salvador.’ He wished that Margot didn’t dislike the tragedy. Perhaps its stiff denial of lasting love afflicted her. It afflicted Mark. And yet the poet was right. The passion in the play would be a fleet, hot thing, engrossing for a week, a month and then stale for ever. Lust went so. He nodded and picked up Margot’s black and yellow bath wrap, a foolish, lovely cape in which she looked like an Arab. Then she called to him and he walked back to where she sat on the tiled steps reading a letter.
“Olive brought me a note from Doris Arbuthnot. Lives in Devonshire. She’s a dear ... rather like aunt Sadie but not quite so hefty. All the Wacks have come home from France, now, and they won’t work. They sit about and talk to the heroes about France. Doris owns gobs of land and she’s having a poky time.—What are you laughing at?”
“Your hair, sister.”