"Rinehart, Mary Roberts - The Amazing Interlude" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rinehart Mary Roberts)

"Certainly, my dear," she said. "But coordinated - coordinated."

It is hard to say just when the lights went down on Sara Lee's quiet
stage and the interlude began. Not on the steamer, for after three days
of discouragement and good weather they struck a storm; and Sara Lee's
fine frenzy died for a time, of nausea. She did not appear again until
the boat entered the Mersey, a pale and shaken angel of mercy, not at
all sure of her wings, and most terribly homesick.

That night Sara Lee made a friend, one that Harvey would have approved
of, an elderly Englishman named Travers. He was standing by the rail
in the rain looking out at the blinking signal lights on both sides of
the river. The ship for the first time had abandoned its policy of
darkness and the decks were bathed in light.

Overhead the yardarm blinkers were signaling, and directly over Sara
Lee's head a great white searchlight swept the water ahead. The wind
was blowing a gale, and the red and green lights of the pilot boat swung
in great arcs that seemed to touch the waves on either side.

Sara Lee stood beside Mr. Travers, for companionship only. He had
preserved a typically British aloofness during the voyage, and he had
never spoken to her. But there was something forlorn in Sara Lee that
night as she clutched her hat with both hands and stared out at the
shore lights. And if he had been silent during the voyage he had not
been deaf. So he knew why almost every woman on the ship was making
the voyage; but he knew nothing about Sara Lee.

"Bad night," said Mr. Travers.

"I was wondering what they are trying to do with that little boat."

Mr. Travers concealed the surprise of a man who was making his
seventy-second voyage.

"That's the pilot boat," he explained. "We are picking up a pilot."

"But," marveled Sara Lee rather breathlessly, "have we come all the way
without any pilot?"

He explained that to her, and showed her a few moments later how the
pilot came with incredible rapidity up the swaying rope ladder and over
the side.

To be honest, he had been watching for the pilot boat, not to see what
to Sara Lee was the thrilling progress of the pilot up the ladder, but
to get the newspapers he would bring on with him. It is perhaps
explanatory of the way things went for Sara Lee from that time on that
he quite forgot his newspapers.