Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/76

 "No? Well, Elizabeth will tell you. It's rather a long story. I am going into the water. Come on, Bob."

She left the cloak with me. Anthony followed her and the others. I sat alone under a great orange umbrella and wondered if Anthony would ask me about the cloak.

He did not, and when Nancy came back finally with her hair down and blowing in the wind to dry, Anthony was with her. The cloud was gone from his face, in the battle with the waves he had forgotten his vexation.

But he remembered when he saw the cloak. "Tell me about it, Nancy."

"I got it from Elizabeth's viking."

That was the calm way in which she put it.

"He isn't my viking," I told her.

"Well, you were responsible for him."

"Do you mean to say," Anthony demanded, "that you accepted a gift like that from a man you didn't know? "

Nancy, hugging herself in the cloak, said, "I felt that I knew him very well."

"How long was he here? "

"Three days. I saw him twice."

"I don't think I quite like the—idea" Anthony began, then broke off. "Of course you have a right to do as you please." 70