"Keith Laumer - The World Shuffler" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

kegs and roast haunches of venison, where a fellow could dine with his girl by the smoky
light of tallow candles. And there was no reason they couldn't eat at one. They didn't
have to participate in another glittering affair.
Suddenly excited, Lafayette started for the door, then turned into the next room,
opened the closet door on a dazzling array of finery, grabbed a plum-colored coat with
silver buttons. Not that he needed a coat in this weather, but protocol required it. If he
appeared in public in shirtsleeves, people would stare, Daphne would be upset, Adoranne
would raise her perfectly arched eyebrow ...
That was what it had settled down to, Lafayette thought as he pulled on the coat and
hurried down the hall: conventional routine. Dull conformity. Ye Gods, wasn't that what
he had wanted to get away from when he had been a penniless draftsman back in the
States? Not that he wasn't in the States now, geographically, at least, he reminded
himself. Artesia was situated in the same spot on the map as Colby Corners. It was just
that it was another dimension, where things were supposed to happen!
But what had been happening lately? The Royal Ball, the Royal Hunt, the Royal
Regatta. An endless succession of brilliant events, attended by brilliant society, making
brilliant conversation.
So ... what was wrong? Wasn't that what he'd dreamed of, back in the boardinghouse,
opening sardines for the evening repast?
It was, he confessed sadly. And yet . . . and yet he was bored.
Bored. In Artesia, land of his dreams. Bored.
"But . . . there's no sense in it!" he exclaimed aloud, descending the wide spiral
staircase to the gilt-and-mirrored Grand Hall. "I've got everything I ever wantedтАФand
what I haven't got, I can order sent up by Room Service! Daphne's as sweet a little bride
as ever a man could imagine, and I have a choice of three spirited chargers in the Royal
Stable, to say nothing of Dinny, and a two-hundred-suit wardrobe, and a banquet every
night, and . . . and . . ."
He walked, echoing, across the polished red-and-black granite floor, filled with a
sudden sense of weariness at the thought of tomorrow, of yet another banquet, yet another
ball, another day and night of non-accomplishment.
"But what do I want to accomplish?" he demanded aloud, striding past his reflection in
the tall mirrors lining the hall. "The whole point in sweating over a job is to earn the cash
to let you do what you want to do. And I'm already doing what I want to do." He glanced
sideways at his image, splendid in plum and purple and gilt. "Aren't I?
"We'll go away," he muttered as he hurried toward the garden. "Up into the mountains,
or out into the desert, maybe. Or to the seashore. I'll bet Daphne's never gone skinny-
dipping in the moonlight. At least not with me. And we'll take along some supplies, and
cook our own meals, and fish and bird-watch, and take botanical notes, and . . ."
He paused on the wide terrace, scanning the green expanse below for a glimpse of
Daphne's slender, curvaceous figure. The last of the partygoers had gone; the butler had
disappeared, and the maid. A single aged gardener puttered in a far corner.
Lafayette slowed, mooched along the path, hardly aware of the scent of gardenia in
blossom, of the lazy hum of bees, the soft sigh of the breeze through well-tended treetops.
His enthusiasm had drained away. What good would going away do? He'd still be the
same Lafayette O'Leary, and Daphne would be the same girl she was here. Probably after
the first flush of enthusiasm he'd begin to miss his comfortable chair and well-stocked
refrigerator, and Daphne would begin to fret over her hair-do and wonder what was going
on in her absence from the party scene. And then there would be the insect bites and the
hot sun and the cold nights and the burned food and all the other inconveniences he'd
gotten used to doing without. ...