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MOSQUITOES
135

hand. . . . Her foot ceased its motion and she remained motionless for a space. Then she stood on one leg and raised the other one. Under her fingers was a small, hard bump, slightly feverish. Gabriel’s pants, she whispered, they’ve found us again. But there was nothing for it except to wait until the tug came. “And finds a lot of picked bones,” she added aloud. She went on across the deck; at the stairs she stopped again.

It was David, standing there at the rail, his shirt blanching in the level moonlight, against the dark shoreline. She went over beside him, silent on her bare feet.

“Hello, David,” she said quietly, putting her elbows on the rail beside his and hunching her shoulders and crossing her legs as his were. “This would be a good night to be on our mountain, looking down at the lake and the little boats all lighted up, wouldn’t it? I guess this time next summer we'll be there, won’t we? And lots of other places, where you went to. You know nice things, don’t you? When we come back, I’ll know nice things, too.” She gazed downward upon the dark, ceaseless water. It was never still, never the same, and on it moonlight was broken into little fleeting silver wings rising and falling and changing.

“Wish I were in it,” she said, “swimming around in the moonlight. . . . You won’t forget about in the morning, will you?” No, he told her watching her crossed thin arms and the cropped crown of her head. “Say,” she looked up at him, “I tell you what: let’s go in to-night.”

“Now?”

“When the moon gets up more. Aunt Pat wouldn’t let me go now, anyway. But about twelve, when they’ve gone to bed. What do you say?” He looked at her, looked at her in such a strange fashion that she said sharply: “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he answered at last.