Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/177

 The thing that a doctor never could or would have figured on about the entire circumstance was the thing that happened. Breathing in unison with the sweep of the waves, Jamie very shortly went to sleep again. His last conscious thought was not about himself. It was a commingling of lazy, sunlit waves, a feeling of being drawn somewhere by a rope of hair across his face. He went over the top into dreamland in imagination clutching a letter in one hand, and in the final drop into unconsciousness, the last thought that he sensed in his brain had something to do with a bathing suit and a gorgeous big red tomato. When Margaret Cameron finished dusting and entered the kitchen to gather up the dishes from which Jamie had eaten his breakfast, she found that long, lean individual sitting at the table and looking at her speculatively. There was a question in his eyes, a humorous quirk around his mouth. His fingers were drumming the table. Then he spoke.

“Margaret Cameron,” he asked, “are you a lady?”

Margaret Cameron took hold of a wooden chair back, and leaning forward, studied Jamie intently, but she answered him quietly and readily enough:

“I try to be.”

“Oh, I don’t mean,” said Jamie, “have you got a long line of highly bred ancestors; are you skilled in the fine arts of society; do you wear exquisite clothing and live a life elegant leisure. What want to know, to put it briefly and bluntly, is, would you faint at the sight of a drop of blood, if it happened to be human blood?”