Page:Mosquitos (Faulkner).pdf/102

 haps,” Miss Jameson replied. “I saw him at the rail yonder a while ago.”

“Ah, Mr. Talliaferro!” exclaimed Mrs. Wiseman. “Look out for yourself. Widders and artists, you know. You see how susceptible I am, myself. Wasn’t there ever a fortune teller to warn you of a tall red stranger in your destiny?”

“You are a widow only by courtesy,” the poet rejoined, “like the serving maids in sixteenth century literature.”

“So are some of the artists, my boy,” Mrs. Wiseman replied. “But all the men on board are not even artists. What, Ernest?”

Mr. Talliaferro bridled smugly through the smoke of his cigarette. Mrs. Wiseman consumed hers in an unbroken series of deep draughts and flipped it railward: a twinkling scarlet coal. “I said talk,” she reminded them, “not a few mild disjointed beans of gossip.” She rose. “Come on, let’s go to bed, Dorothy.”

Miss Jameson sat, a humorless inertia. “And leave that moon?”

Mrs. Wiseman yawned, stretching her arms. The moon spread her silver ceaseless hand on the dark water. Mrs. Wiseman turned, spreading her arms in a flamboyant gesture, in silhouette against it. “Ah, Moon, poor weary one By yon black moon,” she apostrophized.

“No wonder it looks tired,” the poet remarked hollowly. “Think of how much adultery it’s had to look upon.”

“Or assume the blame for,” Mrs. Wiseman amended. She dropped her arms. “TI wish I were in love,” she said. “Why aren’t you and Ernest more more  Come on, Dorothy, let’s go to bed.”

“Have I got to move?” Miss Jameson said. She rose, however. The men rose also, and the two women departed. When