Adventure Magazine Cover — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

Red Mist interested me in the girl on the El-Biar road. She spoke it as fluently as you speak English. I dare say she’s a mission- ary’s daughter.” He beamed on Miss Pellam. “At any rate, she isn’t you, so I don’t much care.’ “Let us go,” said Miss Pellam suddenly. Holbrooke nodded. It’s only a step. I know of a nice little place, absolutely respectable, where we can see some good dancing. You must get acclimated by degrees, you know.” “Don’t be afraid. Please give me the best time you can!” she pleaded. Holbrooke laughed happily. Never had the call of the Old Town sounded so sweet. Her pose charmed him. For a moment he was disarmed. Those gray eyes were very wells of truth. “Did you ever hear of the Café du Scor- pion?” he asked. The eyes met his, innocently mystified but alight with a naive curiosity. She shook her head. “Never. I shall have to trust to your discretion entirely.” “If your father should ever ask?” he began dubiously. “Trust me! I shall look properly inno- cent,” she laughed. “As you do now?” asked Holbrooke abruptly. ‘Then he repented. ‘The gray eyes regarded him with the expression of a wounded doe. He could have bitten his tongue out for that gauche remark. “You don’t believe me!” She stated the horrid fact; 1t was not a question in her mind. And she wished him to know it. “You still think me the girl you met on the El-Biar road!” “Forgive me,’ “But you are so disastrously alike ‘‘Disastrously?”? She intoned the un- fortunate word. He blushed hotly, conscious of a second blunder. “ Disastrous to your good opinion of me,” was his defense. ‘‘And I mustn’t lose that!’ The note of anxiety in his voice was genuine. Miss Pellam rose, her fingers resting on the table, and looked at him. He also stood, facing her across the disarray of glass and china. “Do you care for it very much?” The tone in her flexible voice thrilled him. There was something intimate, personal, in it. He was conscious that they were looking at each other not as strangers, not ’ cried Holbrooke humbly. 9 ‘Shall we walk?. 791 merely as friends, but like a man and woman who have been suddenly thrust into each other’s lives roughly, almost violently, by the hands of a fate they did not understand but could only obey. “Yes,” said Holbrooke. have any right to care; than I can—understand.” answer him except in her smile. and in silence they passed down the room. “More than I more, perhaps, She did not Til No: » AS THEY reached the door a man, ~32Z. seated at the last table, nodded to BOOM Holbrooke , then looked intently, curi- Sar: at the girl. She did not see him, but her companion caught the man’s look and wondered at it. He was Paul Le Roche, an habitué of the Latin Quarter in Paris; something of an artist and a man whose circle of acquaintances widened to admit all sorts and conditions of his fellows. A moment later, as Holbrooke stood in the corridor while Miss Pellam went to her room for a wrap, a hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned and looked into the Frenchman’s inquisitive eyes. : “Le Roche!”? They shook hands. “Are you one of the immortals now? The last time we met in Paris that was your ambi- tion.” “Not yet,” answered the Fecchmart “But you look as though you had been dwelling with them, even though you haven’t been crowned. ”” “He lowered his voice and added. ‘‘Between ourselves, aren’t you keeping rather strange company, my dear fellow?”’ “What do you mean?” asked Holbrooke. A sudden, intense excitement clutched him, but he put his question calmly. “Don’t you know with whom you’ve been dining?” “Of course. Miss Pellam—a compatriot of mine,” Holbrooke answered stiffly. There was a tone in the Frenchman’s voice which he resented. “You are mistaken,’ said Le Roche quietly. ‘“‘That is Belle Haas—‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci,’ as she is called in Gov- ernment circles, the cleverest and most fascinating woman of her profession.” ““You’re wrong, Le Roche,” Holbrooke cried. ‘“‘Wrong and—crazy.” Le Roche’s answer was a smile of unbe- lief. Then he looked at Holbrooke sharply. COmiclbook Together . ©