Лучшие истории о любви / Best love stories - стр. 8
“I’m glad I met you, Andy,” he said with undue seriousness. “I’ll hand you on all my information before I start for Texas. You see, there’re really only three girls here – ”
I was interested; there was something mystical about there being three girls.
“ – and here’s one of them now.”
We were in front of a drug store and he marched me in and introduced me to a lady I promptly detested.
“The other two are Ailie Calhoun and Sally Carrol Happer.”
I guessed from the way he pronounced her name, that he was interested in Ailie Calhoun – what a lovely name. It was on his mind what she would be doing while he was gone; he wanted her to have a quiet, uninteresting time.
At my age I don’t even hesitate to confess that images of Ailie Calhoun that rushed into my mind were not chivalrous at all. At twenty-three there is no such thing as a preempted beauty;[32] though, had Bill asked me, I would doubtless have sworn in all sincerity to care for her like a sister. He didn’t; he just worried about having to go. Three days later he telephoned me that he was leaving next morning and he’d take me to her house that night.
We met at the hotel and walked uptown through the flowery, hot twilight. The four white pillars of the Calhoun house faced the street, and behind them the veranda was dark as a cave with hanging, weaving, climbing vines.
When we came up the walk a girl in a white dress went out of the front door, crying, “I’m so sorry I’m late!” and seeing us, added: “Why, I thought I heard you come ten minutes – ”
She broke off as a chair creaked and another man, an aviator from Camp Harry Lee, emerged from the obscurity of the veranda.
“Why, Canby!” she cried. “How are you?”
He and Bill Knowles waited with the tenseness of open litigants.
“Canby, I want to whisper to you, honey,” she said, after just a second. “You’ll excuse us, Bill.”
They went aside. Soon Lieutenant Canby, very displeased, said in a grim voice, “Then we’ll make it Thursday, but that means sure.” Scarcely nodding to us, he went down the walk.
“Come in – I don’t just know your name – ”
There she was – the Southern type in all its purity. She was small and very blond. She had the adroitness sugar-coated with sweet, voluble simplicity, the unfailing coolness acquired in the endless struggle with the heat. There were notes in her voice that order slaves around, that withered up Yankee captains, and then soft, wheedling notes that mixed in unfamiliar loveliness with the night.
“After Bill goes I’ll be sitting here all alone night after night. Maybe you’ll take me to the country-club dances.” The pathetic prophecy brought a laugh from Bill. “Wait a minute,” Ailie murmured.