Free Hamilton, Donald - Novel 01 by Date, Darkness (v1.1) Page A

but I used to sail when I was a kid."
          "A boat like
that?"
          "That's a motorboat, stupid," he
said. "You don't sail motorboats."
          "Could you?"
          "Listen," he said, grinning,
"anything that floats, I can handle it. Give me a battleship and I'11 show
you. Go ahead. I dare you."
          She was silent and unsmiling and he looked
at her again, feeling a little deflated.
          "Are you cold?" he asked her.
          "No," she said. She put her hand
on his arm. "Why don't you-?" she said quickly, and stopped.
          He grinned. "Sure. Anything you
say."
          "If I told you ..."
          "Tell me," he said.
          She took her hand away and stood up,
brushing at her dress. He got up slowly and stood looking down at her.
"What's the matter, Constance ? Something wrong?"
          Her eyes watched him out of her small,
pale, crowded face. "Yes," she said, "You're wrong. And I don't
know how to tell you without ..."
          "I won't get sore," he said.
"What's the matter? Am I on the wrong side?"
          She nodded, and took the lapels of his
raincoat in her fingers, not looking at him, but at her fingers holding the
waterproofed blue serge. "You should ... be helping us," she
whispered. "You're too ... nice to be ..."
          He took her by the shoulders and shook her
minutely. "Cut it out," he said. "Quit laying
it on with a shovel." He was suddenly very angry with her because
she had almost had him believing in her, and he took her to him abruptly and
kissed her mouth.
          Then he stood there, still holding her,
feeling stupid and bewildered because nothing had happened and it had been like
kissing an inanimate object, and her body was as unresistant to his grasp as her mouth had been to his kiss. Her eyes were open, looking up
at him with a curious flat calm. lie waited for her to
protest or struggle or slap him. The bright lipstick, black in the darkness,
was a little streaked on her upper lip to show that he had really kissed her.
          Suddenly she shivered a little. He
released her and stepped back, licking his lips.
          "All right," he whispered.
"All right, if it was that bad ... ."
          She did not touch her hair or her dress or
do any of the things they did after being kissed, but walked beside him off the
pier and across the harsh cinders of the wharf and around the warehouse to the
sidewalk.
          "Listen," he said as they came
up the sidewalk. "You don't have to throw an epileptic fit just because a
guy makes a pass at you."
          He heard the tempo of her low heels on the
pavement increase beside him, and she did not speak. She was almost running,
and there was a quality of panic in her silence. The unfair advantage of his
long legs kept him easily abreast of her.
          "Your mouth is crooked," he said
as they approached the hotel. She pulled a handkerchief from her jacket pocket
and rubbed at her lips, hurrying up the steps ahead of him, and he followed her
through the lobby to the foot of the stairs. The large young man came out of
the alcove below the stairs to face them, and the girl stopped abruptly.
          Paul Laflin ,
looking down at her, grinned. "Well, Constance ," he said, "did
you have a nice time?"
          She tried to slip past him, but he blocked
her way. Over her head he looked at Branch, still grinning. His grin became a
low chuckle.
          " Constance is a little shy. Men seem
to frighten her."
          The girl stood hopelessly still in front
of him, waiting until such time as he would permit her to go. The chinless man
stepped out of the shadow of the stairwell.
          "She had a rather unfortunate
experience with the Boche ," he said, smiling, to
Branch; and to the younger man: "Let her go, Paul."
          Paul Laflin moved aside. The girl darted up the stairs, the brief loose skirt of her dress fIuttering about her knees with the rapidity of