Argosy, September 1955 — page 43: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SUMMER IN SALANDAR 41 there. He wanted all of a sudden to lie down on the bed. He was caught up in an illusion of lying there with her. He went quickly out into the sun. From the ledge of short grass, walled by rock, where Miss Vane was lying, he heard voices. As he came closer he saw Miss Vane was wearing her sun-glasses. *< Tt’s all right—Manuel found them. I’d left them in the dining- room.” Manuel, in shirt-sleeves, without the black waiter’s coat, stood stiffly erect, holding a bunch of two or three roses in his hands. “Don’t you think that’s amazing? ’’ Miss Vane said. ‘“‘ He even finds roses up here.”’ “Where on earth do you get roses? ’? Manson said. * In the garden, sir. At the back.”’ * He says there was a wonderful garden here once. An English- man made it. He used to come here for the summer. He was a sugar-planter or something. Wasn’t that it, Manuel? ”’ Manuel’s eyes rested thinly and dryly on some point across the valley. ‘‘ Yes, madame. He was sugar. He was sugar, wine, sugar- brandy, coal, sardines, water, anything.’’ He spoke slowly. ‘“‘ He took the water from the people and sold it back again.” “You mean he developed the country,’’ Manson said. *'That’s so, sir.” Manuel walked away and Manson looked after him. He detected, for the first time, an oddity in Manuel’s walk. The right foot, swinging outward, stubbed the ground as it came back again. And this weakness, not quite a deformity, suddenly deprived the stocky shoulders of their power. ** Are you looking at his leg?’’ Miss Vane said. ‘‘ He was in an accident or something. With his brother. He was telling me before breakfast. Before you came down. Did he tell you?” c¢ No.”’ ‘“‘ I feel rather sorry for him,” she said. He sat down in the sun, his mind searching for a change of subject. He stared across the valley, remembering with what thin, dry abstraction Manuel had looked there. ““Oh! I just remembered,” he said. ‘‘ After the Alacantra on Wednesday there isn’t another decent boat for three weeks.”’ ‘“* No wonder you get a feeling of isolation here.” * Well, anyway, I thought you ought to know. It’s a long time.”’ “Would you find it long? ” He wanted to say, “‘ It depends.’”’ He wanted to qualify, some- how, the statement he had already made. He knew that what he had to say and feel depended on Miss Vane and whether Miss Vane caught the Alacantra. Already he did not want her to catch it. He was afraid of her catching it. But he could not express what he felt, and he said, ‘‘ That damned man is always whistling. Can you hear it? He is always whistling.” “TI hadn’t noticed it,” she said. When they went in to lunch Manuel stood behind her chair, holding it, pushing it gently forward as she sat down. comicbooks.conn