Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 188: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

174 I waited with my fingers motionless against. the little: brass chain of the light on the stand beside my chair. In those days, and sometimes in these, I would about as soon have my five fingers, my hand, cut off and mislaid as to have a gun beyond reach. As it was, I was fully satisfied with the situation. The only trouble about shooting is that it makes a noise and people come to ask questions. . A sheaf of spreading light thrust itself out from the electric torch my visitor. carried and fell on the empty bed; simul- taneously I pulled the lamp’s cord and with some effort to be calmly polite said— “Won’t you sit down?” A smothered, futilely strangled little cry of fright—and the woman, a masked woman, with hands that gripped the torch and a small gun pressed in sudden alarm against her bosom, stepped stum- blingly back. The eyes shot pomeney through the mask-slits at me. “Push the door to, please,” I said pleas- antly, trying to speak as naturally as one might under normal conditions to a not unwelcome stranger. I was not going to let her know that I was as much surprized as herself. She stepped slightly to one side and closed the door without taking her eyes off me. “T very nearly grew tired of waiting for you. Please sit down.” . I courteously indicated a chair near me. She approached the chair with slow, trance-like movements, her eyes fixed on my face as if hypnotized. She was momentarily bewildered. That was all that was the matter with her. Surprize can deliver a blow scarcely less numbing than a club. She recovered rapidly, however, if not from the surprize, at least from the ap- pearance of it. She sat down with a certain feline care, a suggestion of—I don’t know just how to word the impression I got, but I will say that she sat down with a sug- gestion of daintiness. She tried to con- vey, and nearly succeeded, that she was not at all uneasy; yet she did not assume any boldness or even nonchalance. I could not see much of her face, for Adventure she wore a mask, a domino, a black piece of silk that hid her forehead and eyes. Her mouth seemed just a trifle large— she was a small woman—but, as that im- pression eventually disappeared, I may. “have had it because at first her mouth gaped a little. She was not at all the type one would suspect of being “a female bandit. There was a shade of delicacy about her half-hidden face that the mask did not conceal. : I am not inclined to be romantic over any woman, not even a pretty strange one who comes picturesquely and unbid- den into my rooms at such indisereet hours. I had an idea that she knew she was amazingly pretty. Neither her knowledge of it nor her beauty would serve her so well as she might reason- ably expect, for I happen not to be very susceptible to the fair, soft charms of women. That is, I have always. been very determined not to be. If women are watched closely, suspected constantly and not trusted in the least, one can some- times keep out of their fingers. This little intruder had bobbed, wavy hair—light-brown hair that fairly tum- bled off her head and clustered about her neck. There was a suggestion of gold about it, merely a flickering glint at times something, like sunlight on deep water. I am not being romantic. I am merely describing her hair accurately. She‘had on a rather short, black, pleated dress of what appeared to be some kind of serge, and a blouse of the same mate-. rial. It was a loose blouse with a scroll of black silk braid running about the breasts. The belt was a wide black piece of unpolished leather, caught together by a heavy wide black buckle. She wore shimmering black silk stockings and her small feet, very small feet, were fitted with a sort of heel-less slippers of black soft leather. Her marauding costume seemed to have been designed with an eye toward invisibility. She would have been very inconspicuous in a dim light unless one was attracted by her white hands and the unconcealed part of her face. I looked at her carefully, deliberately, almost critically. I wanted to know as. much about her as my eyes could tell me. Then, too, | have found that it disturbs people in an awkward situation to be ‘S GComichboo (E(9)