Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/114

 in the sun. The white was her skin; the crimson, the silk of a scarf below her. She had flung pillows on the floor and spread over them the scarf upon which she lay, her black kimono half covering her.

Flown were all thoughts of the Mettens and what she might have done with them. He gasped, standing over her; and she, looking up at him, said: "Let's go to Levuka."

"Where's that?" whispered Jay.

"The Fiji. I just found out. I've always known the verse. It's in Kipling:

"He means the trade wind. Let's go to palm groves and trade winds, Jay. I'd like a lamenting wind and palms and shore and south seas."

"So would I," said Jay.

"Kiss me," said Lida; and he knelt and seized her, warm with the sun. "Then let's go! . . . Why not? Why not?" she challenged, clinging to him, lifted in his arms from her crimson scarf. "One day we'll be beachcombers, bathing bare in the shining sea; and sleep under stars which'll be strange. Even the stars, Jay. No Dipper; no old, stale northern stars. The Southern Cross!

"We'll awaken and sail—we must have a sail, Jay, no spluttering motor—and skim into the lagoon of a coral