“Well, well, well,” said Mr. Questing. “Look who’s here! How’s the young lady?”
Barbara clawed the raincoat about her and said she was very well.
“That’s fine,” said Mr. Questing. “Feeling good, eh? That’s the great little lass.” He laughed boisterously and manoeuvred in an agile manner in order to place himself between Barbara and the diving board. “What’s your hurry?” he asked merrily. “Plenty of time for the bathing-beauty stuff. What say we have a wee chin-wag, You, Me, & Co., uh?”
Barbara eyed him with dismay. What new and odious development was this? Since the extraordinary scene on the evening of Smith’s accident, she had not encountered Questing alone and was almost unaware of the angry undercurrents which ran strongly through the normal course of life at Wai-ata-tapu. For Barbara was carried along the headier stream of infatuation. She was bemused with calf-love, an infant disease which, caught late, is doubly virulent. Since that first meeting in the dusk, she had not seen much of Gaunt. She was so grateful for her brief rapture and, upon consideration, so doubtful of its endurance, that she made no attempt to bring about a second encounter. It was enough to see him at long intervals, and receive his greeting. Of Questing she had thought hardly at all, and his appearance at the lake surprised as much as it dismayed her.
“What do you want to see me about, Mr. Questing?”
“Well now, I seem to have the idea there’s quite a lot I’d like to talk to Miss Babs about. All sorts of things,” said Mr. Questing, dropping his voice to a fruity croon. “All sorts of things.”
“But — would you mind — you see I’m just going to…”
“What’s the big hurry?” urged Mr. Questing, in his best synthetic American. “Wait a bit, wait a bit. The lake won’t get cold. You ought to do some sun-bathing. You’d look good if you bronzed, Babs. Snappy.”
“I’m afraid I really can’t…”
“Look,” said Mr. Questing with emphasis. “I said I wanted to talk to you and what I meant was I wanted to talk to you. You’ve no call to act as if I’d made certain suggestions. What’s the idea of all this shrinking stuff? Mind, I like it in moderation. It’s old-world. Up to a point it pleases a man, but after that it’s irritating and right now’s the place where you want to forget it. We all know you’re the pure-minded type by this time, girlie. Let it go at that.”
Barbara gaped at him. “There’s a camp-stool behind that bush,” he continued. “Come and sit on it. I’ll say this better if I keep on my feet. Be sensible, now. You’re going to enjoy this, I hope. It’s a great little proposition when viewed in the correct light.” Barbara looked back at the house. Her mother appeared hurrying along the verandah. She did not glance up, but at any moment she might do so and the picture of her daughter, tête-à-tête with Mr. Questing instead of swimming in the lake, would certainly disturb her. Yet Mr. Questing stood between Barbara and the lake and, if she tried to dodge him, might attempt to restrain her. Better get the extraordinary interview over as inconspicuously as possible. She walked round the manuka bush and sat on the stool; Mr. Questing followed. He stood over her smelling of soap, cigars and scented cachous.
“That’s fine and dandy,” he said. “Have a cigarette. No? O.K. Now, listen, honey, I’m a practical man and I like to come straight to the point, never mind whether it’s business or pleasure and you might call this a bit of both. I got a proposition to put up which I think is going to interest you a whole lot, but first of all we’ll clear the air of misunderstandings. Now I don’t just know how far you’re wise to the position between me and your dad.”
He paused, and Barbara, full of apprehension, hurriedly collected her thoughts. “Nothing!” she murmured. “I know nothing. Father doesn’t discuss business with us.”
“Doesn’t he, now? Is that the case? Very Old-World in his notions, isn’t he? Well, now, we don’t expect the ladies to take a great deal of interest in business so I won’t trouble you with a lot of detail. Just the broad outline,” said Mr. Questing making an appropriate gesture, “so’s you’ll get the idea. Now, you might put it this way, you might say that your dad’s under an obligation to me.”
You might indeed, Barbara thought, as Mr. Questing’s only too lucid explanation rolled on. It seemed that five years ago when he first came to Wai-ata-tapu to ease himself of lumbago, he had lent Colonel Claire a thousand pounds, at a low rate of interest, taking the hostel and springs as security. Colonel Claire was behind with the interest and the principal was now due. Mr. Questing clothed the bare bones of his narrative in a vestment of playful hints and nudges. He wasn’t, he said, a hard man. He didn’t want to make it too solid for the old Colonel, not he. “But just the same — ” Cliché followed cliché, business continued to be business, and more and more dubious grew the development of his theme until at last even poor Barbara began to understand him.
“No!” she cried out at last. “Oh, no! I couldn’t. Please don’t!”
“Wait a bit, now. Don’t act as if I’m not making a straight offer. Don’t get me all wrong. I’m asking you to marry me, Babs.”
“Yes, I know, but I can’t possibly. Please!”
“Don’t run away with the idea it’s just a business deal. It’s not.” Mr, Questing’s voice actually faltered and if Barbara had been less frantically distracted she might have noticed that he had changed colour. “To tell you the truth I’ve fallen for you, kid,” he continued appallingly. “I don’t know why, I’m sure. I like ’em snappy and kind of wise as a general rule and if you’ll pardon my candour you’re sloppy in your dress and, boy, are you simple! Maybe that’s exactly why I’ve fallen. Now don’t interrupt me. I’m not dizzy yet and I know you’re not that way about me. I don’t say I’d have asked you if I hadn’t got a big idea you’d run this joint damn well when I showed you how. I don’t say I haven’t put you on the spot where it’s going to be hard to say no. I have. I knew where I could get in the fine work, seeing how your old folks are placed, and I got it in. I’ll use it all right. But listen, little girl” — Mr. Questing on a sudden note of fervour breathed out his final cliché — “I want you,” he said hoarsely.
To Barbara the whole speech had sounded nightmarish. She quite failed to realize that Mr. Questing thought on these standardized lines and spoke his commonplaces from a full heart. It was the first experience of its kind that she had endured, and he seemed to her a terrible figure, half-threatening, half-amorous. When she forced herself to look up and saw him in his smooth pale suit, himself pale, slightly obese and glistening, and found his eyes fixed rather greedily upon hers, her panic mounted to its climax, and she thought: “I shan’t like to refuse. I must get away.” She noticed that his expensive watch-chain was heaving up and down in an agitated rhythm about two feet away from her nose. She sprang to her feet and, as if she had released a spring in Mr. Questing, he flung his arms about her. During the following moments the thing she was most conscious of was his stertorous breathing. She brought her elbows together and shoved with her forearms against his waistcoat. At the same time she dodged the face which thrust forward repeatedly at hers. She thought: “This is frightful. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. I’m hating this.” Mr. Questing muttered excitedly: “Now, now, now,” and they tramped to and fro. Barbara tripped over the camp-stool and rapped her shin. She gave a little yelp of pain. And upon this scene came Simon and Dikon.