Lady Afraid Read Free

attorney?”
    “Huh-uh,” Mike said, and then asked, “Coffee as per usual—no sugar and heavy on the cream?”
    “Yes, I guess so.”
    The table she chose, and carried her coffee to, was small and very obviously a table for two. She selected it because of that and tilted the other of the two chairs forward against the table edge as a sign that it was taken. Sinking into the other chair, she was quite aware of tension, the mere act of bending her legs at the knees was a consciousness.
    Unbuttoning her raincoat filled out a few moments and she did it slowly; each move now was calculated to help with waiting. She sugared her coffee. She moved her purse to two different spots on the table, as if it was of some importance where the purse lay. Finally, from the pinwheel her thoughts had become, she selected a sturdy niche—Captain Most—and in this haven her speculations moved more safely.
    Most was one of those men who are legends within a profession and hardly heard of outside it. He was also one of those men about whom tales are told when the teller has need of the unusual. Most, they said, had twice crossed the Atlantic singlehanded in sailboats less than thirty feet long before he was twenty years old. Tales like that. Violently adventurous.
    Captain Most was what is known in yachting circles as a professional. A paid skipper. He had captained winning craft in the toughest cruising races—twice he had won the Norway race, and the Bermuda one oftener. The man, at sea with his eye on the luff of a sail, was surely an artist.
    Sarah, whose life had been the sea, was not skeptical of the man’s deeds—she knew them for what they were. Not inconsiderable, either. But she had wondered what his personality would be. It was true that she had met him long ago, and a number of times since, but those meetings had always been crowded, urgent, rather lost in the excitement and tension that precedes sail races, or in the more boisterous tumult of celebration and wassail-taking that follows them. She had not only met Most before; she had danced with him a few times. Possibly he had not remembered, but on the other hand, she rather believed he had.
    She had wondered if the man would be a poseur, a martinet, a prima donna. Sometimes they were; sometimes it was that which was in them and drove them to accomplish their deeds. But yesterday she had found she understood him rather well. A man, Sarah had placed him at once, who had no predominant need for social approbation of others, a man who probably lacked insulation, who felt things rather intensely. Most was clearly one thing—he was his own man. He gave obsequiousness to no one, neither to Mr. Arbogast nor to Mr. Collins, owner of the yard, and Sarah had noticed this and admired the quiet way he managed it. She had drawn conclusions about him because of it. In general she suspected him to be oversensitized, overexposed, naked to his environment. She gave him a pattern of jagged, impatient reactions; it would be difficult for Most to wait for anything, and relaxation would come hard for him, and come only consciously.
    These were pretty deep conclusions to draw of a man. But this man was—to use Mr. Arbogast’s word again—salty; and so was she, and she could measure a salty one.
    Anyway, Mr. Arbogast was lucky to get such a one to skipper Vameric. She was surprised he had. So , for that matter , am I fortunate , Sarah reflected. A man like Most would draw the best from Vameric.
    Slowly, almost furtively, the lunchroom door opened. A shotting of rain came in. Then a man, his head drawn down into upturned coat collar.
    The newcomer’s eyes traveled the room, passing Sarah without sign. There was water spilling off the brim of his felt hat, and suddenly he swept off the hat, snapped away the water, replaced the hat, turned down his coat collar with quick thumb strokes. As suddenly, he approached Sarah.
    “Good morning, Mrs. Lineyack,” he said briskly.
    She replied, “Hello,