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What's the idea of all the discord?" demanded Ardita cheerfully. "Is this the varsity crew from the county nut farm?" By this time the boat was scraping the side of the yacht and a great bulking negro in the bow turned round and grasped the ladder.
He had posted a lookout on the high cliff to the north to watch the sea on both sides, though he doubted if the entrance to the cliff was generally known he had never even seen a map on which the island was marked. "What's its name," asked Ardita "the island, I mean?" "No name 'tall," chuckled Babe. "Reckin she jus' island, 'at's all."
He paused and looked at her, and then all at once something in the utter childness of her beauty seemed to puncture his anger like an inflated tire, and render him helpless, uncertain, utterly fatuous. "Ardita," he said not unkindly, "I'm no fool. I've been round. I know men.
We used to sit together on the wharfs down on the New York water-front, he with a bassoon and me with an oboe, and we'd blend minor keys in African harmonics a thousand years old until the rats would crawl up the posts and sit round groaning and squeaking like dogs will in front of a phonograph." Ardita roared. "How you can tell 'em!" Carlyle grinned. "I swear that's the gos "
Thereupon the leader left his position in the stern and before Ardita had realized his intention he ran up the ladder and stood breathless before her on the deck. "The women and children will be spared!" he said briskly. "All crying babies will be immediately drowned and all males put in double irons!"
Ten minutes later they had swung round in a wide circle as if to approach the island from the north. "There's a trick somewhere," commented Ardita thoughtfully. "He can't mean just to anchor up against this cliff."
You know I'd like nothing better." "From now on," he announced grandiloquently, "you are no niece of mine. "O-o-o-oh!" The cry was wrung from Ardita with the agony of a lost soul. "Will you stop boring me! Will you go 'way! Will you jump overboard and drown! Do you want me to throw this book at you!" "If you dare do any " Smack!
"You can, you know." She laughed. "Is it a proposal of marriage? Extra! Ardita Farnam becomes pirate's bride. Society girl kidnapped by ragtime bank robber." "It wasn't a bank." "What was it? Why won't you tell me?" "I don't want to break down your illusions." "My dear man, I have no illusions about you." "I mean your illusions about yourself." She looked up in surprise. "About myself!
They were heading straight in now toward the solid rock, which must have been well over a hundred feet tall, and not until they were within fifty yards of it did Ardita see their objective. Then she clapped her hands in delight.
"Doesn't it? Can't you see us travelling round and spending money right and left, and being worshipped by bell-boys and waiters? Oh, blessed are the simple rich for they inherit the earth!" "I honestly wish we were that way." "I love you, Ardita," he said gently. Her face lost its childish look for moment and became oddly grave.
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