"
"Bless me," she exclaimed, "what must you be out of check!"
That evening we sailed to Racket Island, brought away our belongings,
and established ourselves in the land-locked little bay, about a quarter
of a mile from the house of the Sand Lady.
Early the next morning I walked around to a pier where I had noticed a
good-sized yacht was moored. It was still there; apparently no one had
left the island. After our breakfast on the beach I told Walkirk to
devote himself to independent occupations, and walked up to the house. I
found the lady who had called herself a Person and the one of whom I did
not like to think as an Interpolation sitting together upon the piazza.
I joined them.
"Wouldn't you be very much obliged to me," asked the Person, after a
scattering conversation, in which I suppose I appeared as but a
perfunctory performer, "if I were to go away and leave you alone with
this lady?"
"As this is an island of plain speaking," I replied, "I will say, yes."
Both ladies laughed, and the Person retired to her hammock.
"Now, then," asked Mother Anastasia, "what is the meaning of this
alarming frankness?"
"I wish to talk to you of Sylvia," I answered.
"If you imagine," she said, "that I intend to spend the short time I
shall remain upon this island in talking of Sylvia, you are very much
mistaken.
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