When he had finished, he waited anxiously for
what Joan would say.
"Then you don't like the way I've been managing the house?" was her first
objection. And next, brushing his attempted explanations aside, "One of
two things would happen. Either I should cancel our partnership
agreement and go away, leaving you to get another chaperone to chaperone
your chaperone; or else I'd take the old hen out in the whale-boat and
drown her. Do you imagine for one moment that I sailed my schooner down
here to this raw edge of the earth in order to put myself under a
chaperone?"
"But really . . . er . . . you know a chaperone is a necessary evil," he
objected.
"We've got along very nicely so far without one. Did I have one on the
_Miele_? And yet I was the only woman on board. There are only three
things I am afraid of--bumble-bees, scarlet fever, and chaperones. Ugh!
the clucking, evil-minded monsters, finding wrong in everything, seeing
sin in the most innocent actions, and suggesting sin--yes, causing sin--by
their diseased imaginings."
"Phew!" Sheldon leaned back from the table in mock fear.
"You needn't worry about your bread and butter," he ventured. "If you
fail at planting, you would be sure to succeed as a writer--novels with a
purpose, you know.
Pages:
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146