The phone rang. She ran to answer.
Outdoors, Charles and Marian came in view. They were carrying pails of warm water, mops, cloths and a box of soap powder. Without ado, they began to wash the outside of a kitchen window, their dark heads bobbing in busy unison. Presently Charles called to Duff to lower the top section of the window, which he did. Duff remembered that Mrs. Yates had held a family council at which a list of necessary vacation chores had been drawn up. Charles and Marian were evidently working their way through the list. It wasn’t much of a holiday, Duff thought, but they didn’t appear to mind.
Eleanor stopped talking, started back, and the phone rang again. Her voice took up a new conversation with a pleasure he knew to be stimulated.
Meanwhile, through the now-open window, Marian and Charles began to discuss their sister, somewhat for Duff’s benefit.
“Phone again!” Charles said disgustedly. “Rings all day! You answer, it’s for Eleanor. Your pals try to phone you. The line’s busy!”
“A pain!” Marian agreed. “The doorbell rings, it’s flowers for the Queen. Or it’s a telegram for the Queen. Or clothes in big, fancy boxes. You walk out on the porch, some character is waiting for the Queen — maybe even with a mustache and in striped pants. Every time she skids past you, she’s got on something new. Gifts from the local couturiers.” She made deliberate hash of the French word. “You pick up a newspaper and what do you see?
The Queen, wearing her million-dollar, photogenic smirk!”
Duff chuckled; he was back “at home” all right. And very glad to be.
The phone rang a third time and Eleanor came through the door. “You, Duff.”
Through the window, Charles leered. “Amazing!”
“A gal,” Eleanor went on, her eyes a little curious. “With a voice like a torch song.”
From that, Duff knew who it was before he reached the phone. He wondered how Indigo had learned of his return. Probably she’d run into Scotty Smythe. He also wondered what she wanted — and found out. In fact, after elaborate refusals and protests, he eventually found that he was going to have dinner with her. When he hung up, he saw Eleanor in the doorway; she’d been listening; her expression was indignant, and not even humorously so.
“‘Indigo,’” she mimicked. “She’s notorious!”
Duff was surprised, embarrassed, and slightly annoyed. “Is she? She’s also darn good-looking!” He shrugged. “I can get the kids’ dinner — and then go out—”
“The kids can get their own!” She seemed unduly disturbed. “But, no fooling, she isn’t your type, Duff.”
Her attitude somehow pleased him and yet made him feel obliged to seem resentful.
“Brunette, you mean?”
“She’s actually Russian. Her parents were.”
“Wha-a-a-t?” He drew the word out skeptically. “Never met a more American dame in my life.”
“How did you meet, by the way?”
“Scotty dug her up. She lives in the Gables.”
“I know where she lives!” Eleanor retorted hotly. “Scotty would!”
“He told me,” Duff responded with heat, “that she wanted to meet me. What do you mean, she’s Russian?”
“She wants to meet any person in pants! Being tall, she likes tall ones, if available.
White Russian, she was. Family came here to Miami during the revolution. Ask mother.”
Mrs. Yates, whose door was open, could not avoid overhearing. She called, “Children! Quit squabbling!… Eleanor, Duff has a perfect right to go out with Miss Stacey if he wants.”
They heard the catch in her breath that indicated she was turning her wheel chair, and then she appeared in the doorway, smiling. “Stacey wasn’t the real name, Duff. It was, originally, Stanoblovsky. They changed it to Stacey. Back in the old days, before Walter and I came to Florida. And I guess the local people were fairly proud of having them. They were nobility, till the Bolsheviks threw them out. Maybe in 1917 or around that time. They made money here in lots of different businesses, mostly in selling cars. Mr. Stacey, Indigo’s father, had a big agency. Her uncle’s still—”
“Indigo!” Eleanor repeated scathingly.
“I always thought it was a very attractive name. The girl’a mother chose it because she claimed it was the prettiest word in English.”
“That’s what some broken-down Russian noble would think!” Eleanor turned angrily to Duff. “Go ahead! Fall for that towering twerp! Have a marvelous time with her!
Everybody does!”
“Eleanor!” said Mrs. Yates reproachfully.
The phone rang again at that point. Eleanor seized it, and instantly her voice became honey-sweet. “Of course,” she smiled. “I’ll manage, somehow! I’ve got to appear at the Watercade at four. And then there’s a cocktail party for me on the beach. And the ball. But I could spare a few minutes, maybe, between eight and nine.”
Charles came through the swinging door. “Is anybody getting lunch? Or do we just starve to death quietly?”