Summer Moonshine Read Free Page B

at the bottom of fish-glue businesses, instinct told him that he would not like them.
    'I wouldn't have cared about that,' he said sturdily, 'if Prue had been on the level.'
    'Of course not,' said Jane, wondering what on earth it could be that the immaculate Miss Whittaker had done. 'Still, it's a point.'
    'It is a point,' agreed Tubby. 'She's a tough egg.'
    'She must be, if she slung your brother Joe out.'
    'And with only ten dollars in his kick, mind you. Joe told me so.'
    'Good gracious! What did he do?'
    'Oh, all sorts of things. I know he was a sailor on a tramp steamer, and I believe he held down a job for a time as bouncer at some bar. He did a bit of prize-fighting too.'
    Jane found herself liking this stalwart. The Princess Dwornitzchek was a woman for whom she had little esteem, and it saddened her at times that Tubby, such a dear in other
respects, should allow himself to be so under her thumb. A man who could defy that overpowering millionairess was a man after her own heart.
    'I could tell you all sorts of things about Joe.'
    'I'd love to hear them, but I'm afraid I can't stop now. I've got to dress. What you had better do, it seems to me, is go and have your swim. That'll buck you up.'
    Her words reminded Tubby of the other blow which he had sustained. Not such a wallop, of course, as having one's dreams and ideals knocked for a loop by a woman's treachery, but quite a sock in its way.
    'Say, listen, Jane,' he said, 'what's all this I hear about the houseboat being rented?'
    'Quite correct. Tenant clocks in today. Name of Peake.'
    'Oh, shoot!'
    'Why? You can still go on bathing from it.'
    'Can I, do you think? Won't this fellow mind?'
    'Of course not. Adrian's a great swimmer himself. He'll love to have a little playmate.'
    The brightness which had come like a gleam of winter sunshine into Tubby's careworn face faded abruptly.
    'Adrian?'
    'That's his name.'
    'Adrian Peake?'
    'That's right. You seem to know him.'
    Tubby gave a short, bitter snort. His air was that of a man who realizes that everything is against him.
    'I'll say I know him. I haven't been able to move without treading on the fellow for a year and a half. Will I ever forget that time last August when he was on my stepmother's yacht at Cannes. Talk about getting in one's hair!'
    Jane had become suddenly rigid, but Tubby did not observe this phenomenon. He continued, unheeding:
    'Adrian Peake! My gosh! He's a sort of lapdog of my stepmother's. Trots after her wherever she goes. Marked her down the day she hit London, and has been sponging on her ever since. Adrian by golly Peake, is it? Then the thing's cold. I'm not going to put myself under an obligation to that twerp. Darned gigolo. I shall go and play croquet with Mrs Folsom.'
    Jane Abbott's fists were now clenched and her small teeth set. She was looking at Tubby with an eye compared with which even that of Miss Prudence Whittaker had been kindly and sympathetic.
    'It may interest you to know,' she said, in a steely voice, 'that Adrian and I are engaged.'
    She was right. It interested him extremely. He jumped as if she had hit him.
    'Engaged?'
    'Yes.'
    'You can't be!'
    'I must go and dress.'
    'But wait. Listen. There must be some mistake. You can't possibly be engaged to Adrian Peake. He's going to marry my stepmother.'
    'Don't be an idiot.'
    'He is, I tell you. Unless this is a different Adrian Peake. The one I mean is a slimy bird who looks like a consumptive tailor's dummy.'
    He paused here, for Jane had begun to speak. For some moments she spoke with an incisive eloquence which made
Tubby feel as if the top of his head had come off Then she turned and walked away, leaving him to collect the wreckage.
    Her father, whom she passed on the terrace, called to her, but she merely smiled a tight-lipped smile and hurried on. She was in no mood for conversation, even with a fondly loved parent.

CHAPTER 2
    S IR Buckstone Abbot was standing on the terrace because it was almost time for his daily