Читать книгу Streets of Night онлайн

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"You'll have to get me a new dress, that's all."

The canoe ran into the bank with a sliding thump.

Phoebe was looking at them from behind a clump of maples. She cooed at them in her most dollish voice.

"What have you kids been doing all by yourselves out in the river?"

"We saw you, don't you worry dearest," said Elise balancing to step out of the canoe. "O murder, I got my foot in it!"

"Bring the cushions, Fanshaw," shouted Cham, who was kneeling beside the open picnic basket with a bottle in his hand.

Fanshaw's hands were sticky. The warm champagne had made him feel a little sick. He sat with his back against a tree, his knees drawn up to his chin, looking across the gutted lunch basket at Cham and Phoebe, who lay on their backs and shrieked with laughter. Beside him he was conscious of the blue girl sitting stiff on a cushion, bored, afraid of spoiling her dress. Overhead the afternoon sun beat heavily on the broad maple leaves; patches of sunlight littered the ground like bright torn paper. Through the trees came the mud smell and the restless sheen of the river. Fanshaw was trying to think of something to say to the girl beside him; he daren't turn towards her until he had thought of something to say.