“Well, it don’t make any difference.” The niece lay flat, spreading her arms and legs luxuriously. “Gimme a cigarette. Have you got any?”
“I haven’t got any. I don’t smoke.” Jenny’s leg was satisfactory, so she unwrithed herself.
“You don’t smoke? Why don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Jenny replied, “I just don’t.”
“Look around and see if Eva’s got some somewhere.” The niece raised her head. “Go on: look in her things, she won’t mind.”
Jenny hunted for cigarettes in a soft blonde futility. “Pete’s got some,” she remarked after a time. “He bought twenty packages just before we left town, to bring on the boat.”
“Twenty packages? Good Lord, where’d he think we were going? He must have been scared of shipwreck or something.”
“I guess so.”
“Gabriel’s pants,” the niece said. “That’s all he bro
