Argosy, September 1955 — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

SUMMER IN SALANDAR 49 confidence leap up through his body in thrusting, stabbing bursts. ““'That made me feel better still,” she said. “ Better? ”’ ‘““ Happier—that’s what I mean.” Suddenly, clearly, and for the first time he found himself wonder- ing why she had bothered to come there at the height of summer. “* Happier ’—weren’t you happy before? ” ‘“*.We ought to have found some shadier spot,” she said. ‘“‘ I’m melting. Can you see my bag? where’s my bag? ” He did not bother to look for the bag. ‘‘ Were you? ” “No. I wasn’t,” she said. “Was that why you came here? ” ‘* Partly.” | Her eyes were shut again. In contrast he felt he saw the shape of her breasts, painfully clear under the thin white dress, stir, wake, and look wonderfully up at him. ““ Only partly? ”’ ‘You remember the day I came and I said there wasn’t any colour? ”’ He remembered that. It seemed a thousand years away. “It was colour I was looking for,” she said. A bird-cry, another break of silence, another suspicion of a whispered echo far away between sunburnt roofs of rock were enough to make him uneasy again. ““T don’t quite understand,” he said. ‘‘ Colour? ” “* Where’s my bag? ”’ she said, ‘‘ can’t you see my bag? ”’ For God’s sake, he thought, the bag. Why the bag? why did she always forget the bag? “No, it’s not here. You can’t have brought it,” he said. ‘““Oh, didn’t I?” She sat up, groping in the sun. Her eyes were wide open; he saw them, blue and wet, enormous with trouble. Ineffectually he searched for the bag, too, knowing it wasn’t there. He knew, too, what she was going to ask, and while he was still groping about the grass, she said, “‘ Would you go back and get it? would you be a dear? ”’ He knew suddenly that he was a fool. He was a fool and he would go down and get the bag. He was a fool and he would climb up again. In time she would lose the bag again and he would be a fool and find it once more. ‘“* Must you have it? do you need it to kiss with? ”’ ** Don’t talk like that. I’m lost without it, that’s all. You can kiss me anyway.” As she sat upright he kissed her again holding his hands under her breasts. He felt her give a great start of excitement, as if all the blood were leaping to the front of her body. ‘Then she broke away and said, “The bag. Couldn’t you get the bag?—would you, please? ” ““ What trouble are you in? ” “No trouble.”’ “Tell me what it is.” comiclbooks.conn