“Don’t you wear any nightclothes?”
“I can’t wear that thing Mrs. What’s-her-name lent me,” Jenny replied. “You said you were going to lend me something, only you didn’t. If I’d depended on you on this trip, I guess I’d be back yonder about ten miles, trying to swim home.”
“That’s right. But it doesn’t make any difference what you sleep in, does it?. . . Turn off the light.” Light followed Jenny rosily as she crossed the room, it slid rosily upon her as she turned obediently toward the switch beside the door. The niece lay flat on her back gazing at the unshaded globe. Jenny’s angelic nakedness went beyond her vision and suddenly she stared at nothing with a vague orifice vaguely in the center of it, and beyond the orifice a pale moonfilled sky.
Jenny’s bare feet hissed just a little on the uncarpeted floor and she came breathing softly in the dark, and her hand came out of the dark. The niece moved over against the wall. The round orifice in the center of the dark was obscured, then it reappeared, and breathing with a soft blonde intentness Jenny climbed gingerly into the berth. But she bumped her head anyway, lightly, and she exclaimed “ow” with placid surprise. The bunk heaved monstrously, creaking; the porthole vanished again, then the berth became still and Jenny sighed with a soft explosive sound.
Then she changed her position again and the other said: “Be still, can’t you?” thrusting at Jenny’s boneless, naked abandon with her elbow.
“I’m not fixed yet,” Jenny replied without rancor.
“Well, get in then, and quit flopping around.”
Jenny became lax. “I’m fixed now,” she said at last. She sighed again, a frank yawning sound.
Those slightly dulled feet thudthudded monotonously overhead. Outside, in the pale darkness, water lapped at the hull
