"Robin McKinley - Damar 1 - The Blue Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

although his prospects, when he graduated from university, had suggested something better. This was one
of the many things she did not ask him. Another question she did not ask was if he ever missed Home.
She set down her empty orange-juice glass, and sighed. They'd missed the orange groves, coming
north from Stzara, where her ship put her ashore. She picked up her fork from its shining white, neatly
folded linen napkin, and turned it so that the sunlight that had glittered through her orange juice now
caught in tiny star-bursts across its tines. Don't fidget, she told herself.
This morning she was to go riding with the two Misses Peterson, Cassie and Elizabeth. They were
near her own age, and the admitted beauties of the station; the entire 4th Cavalry, stationed at the
General Mundy, were in love with them. But they were also cheerful and open-hearted, and she was
fond of them. She had never much cared for beauty, although she was aware that she lacked it and that
her position might have been a little easier if she had not.
They would return from their ride by midmorning, because the sun would be growing too hot for
anyone to brave it for pleasure. She planned to ask Lady Amelia if they might all come back here for
lunch. She already knew what the answer would be: "Why, of course! We are always delighted to see
them. I am so pleased, my dear, that you should be so clever as to attach the two most charming girls we
have here to be your particular friends." Harry caught herself playing with her fork again, and laid it down
emphatically. This evening there was to be another dance. Richard had promised to escort her; she had
to acknowledge that, however little they found to say to one another now, he was very good about
escorting her to parties, and dancing with herwhich meant that there was at least one man present whom
she did not tower over. Her gratitude was not at all dimmed by the suspicion that he was nursing a secret
passion for Cassie, nor by the thought, not even a real suspicion, that he might not want himself made a
fool of by his sister's unpopularity. No, his kindness was real; he loved her, she thought, in his silent and
anxious way. Perhaps simply being a very junior military adjutant with an unmarried sister suddenly thrust
on one's hands inevitably made one a bit of a prig.
It never occurred to her to speculate whether any of the young men in their shining regimentals that
Dickie painstakingly introduced her to, and who then painstakingly asked her to dance, presented
themselves from any motive outside a willingness to do their friend Crewe a favor by standing up with his
oversized sister. It would have surprised her very much to learn of her two or three admirers, who so far
resisted the prevailing atmosphere of the barracks as to incline to an altar less populated than that of
either Miss Peterson. "But she's just like her brother," one of them complained to his best friend, who
listened with a friend's patience, although he was himself incapable of seeing the charms of any woman
other than Beth Peterson. "So damned polite. Oh, she's nice enough, you know. I don't suppose she
actually dislikes me," he continued, a bit uncertainly. "But I'm not at all sure she even recognizes me from
one day to the next, so it hardly counts."
"Well," said the friend good-humoredly, "Dick remembers you well enough."
The admirer threw a boot at his friendthe one he hadn't polished yet. "You know what I mean."
"I know what you mean," agreed the friend. "A cold fish." The admirer looked up from the
boot-blacking angrily and the friend held up the extra boot like a shield. "Dick's stiff with honor. I daresay
his sister's like that. You just don't know her well enough yet."
"Balls, dinner parties," moaned the admirer. "You know what they're like; it could take years." The
friend in silent sympathy (thinking of Beth) tossed the boot back, and he began moodily to black it.
The object of his affections, had she known of this conversation, would have agreed with him on the
subject of balls and dinner parties. In fact, she would have added the rider that she wasn't sure it could
be done at all, getting to know someone at any succession of such parties, however prolonged. And the
friend was right about Dick Crewe's powerful sense of honor. He knew well enough that at least two of
his friends were falling in love with his sister; but it never crossed his mind to say anything about them to
her. He could not compromise the privileged knowledge of friendship in such a way.
And Dick's sister, oblivious to the fact that she had won herself a place in the station hierarchy, chafed
and fidgeted.
Lady Amelia arrived at the breakfast table next. They had just settled the question of Cassie and Beth