"Oh, that man!" she said, with something that came dangerously near to
being a sniff. "I saw him. After most of the people were gone, he came
down and went into the water."
"Really?" Cicely's tone was rapt. "I wish I'd seen him. How did he look?"
"Atrocious. He is bow-legged, and he wore a rose-colored suit. Against
the green of the waves, he looked like a huge pink wishbone."
"Did he swim beautifully?"
Phebe shook her hair back from her shoulders.
"Like a merman," she said; "a forsaken merman with the gout."
"Babe!"
"Well, if you must know the truth, the abject, literal truth, he hung his
clothes on a hickory limb, as far as going near the water was concerned.
He waded in up to his ankles and stood there, shivering, shivering a day
like this! Then he trotted back and forth a few times and went back to
the bathhouse again without letting a wave touch him. Booby! If he played
golf, he would probably get his caddie to take him around the links in a
wheelbarrow. I do hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing the creature
get boiled." And, with a final flirt of her hair, she marched away into
the house.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
For the next week, Cicely stalked her lion patiently, warily and in vain.
Gifford Barrett had come down to Quantuck, firmly resolved that on no
conditions would he consent to be lionized.
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