Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

The Road to your illusion, then?”’ she asked. ‘Does your etiquette demand that? You may cheat, but you may never own it—not once?”’ Glaisher frowned. ‘It is my host whom you are insulting, Katrine,” he said. ‘ Please remember that!” ‘“‘How am I to arrive at bluntness?”’ she asked calmly. “I am waiting to discuss questions with you. You refuse to show me your standpoint.” ‘“‘Our obtuseness endeavors to probe for yours, signorina,” said Sarrasco obsequi- ously. Esuli nodded. “T had informed the signorina that I should open an inquiry on the compara- tively small matter of this afternoon’s un- fortunate incident. She, it now appears, is sitting in judgment on wider issues—which at present are beyond my intelligence,” he confessed. She looked round meditatively at the three men. And of the three Glaisher recog- nized that her glance, in meeting his, held more than scorn. It was wonder. And in his heart the discomfiture of the discovered knave was suddenly engulfed by a sort of ‘rage of shame. For he understood in- stinctively. Her astonishment was not directed at him, at his presence there, at his attitude toward circumstance. No, it was directed at herself. “‘I admitted this man to intimacy,” she was reflecting. “‘I even con- templated being his wife. In God’s name how—and why?” So incisive was the instinct that he made as if he would retort to the unspoken question with bluster—meeting scorn with scorn. “‘T am being called on to answer for an act of concealment,” he said. “I have no reason to meet such a charge patiently, Katrine—from you.” She inclined her head gravely. ‘‘ No,” she agreed. “I was not straight with you once, Gordon. I allow it—I confessed it. But circumstances, more than I my- self, were at fault. I did not grasp the situation.” “As you have grasped what you believe to be the truth of this one?” His voice was sarcastic and firmer. The shock of his self- abasement was passing. “As I grasp what I know to be truth in this one,’”’ she agreed. ‘‘Am I to be plainer with you yet?” “It would be better,” he said, and 1093 laughed harshly. “At present your in- telligence moves in higher spheres than we can reach. We are completely in the dark —TI think I may permit myself to speak for all of us.”’ Sarrasco hunched his shoulders to the highest point of incredulity. Esuli bowed a sort of plaintive assent. “It needs few enough words,” she said. ‘This is what you and your underlings have proved to us—to us who are building what you labor to destroy. You, Commandante,”’ —she pointed at him denouncingly—“ you have been hired to effect, by assassination or such other methods as your talents are familiar with, the death of the man on whom the success of the Bir enterprise principally hangs. That is my father. So far you have failed. “You,”’—she turned and confronted Esuli —‘“‘work for the same object and have had your price—from the same quarter, but you have your private bias as well. You see in this line one more weapon pointed at the heart of the old régime in your country—the one on which your self-interest hopes to climb. You work, then, for more than gold. You work because you see destruction for your hopes in not working. That is your position. Like your confederate you have ‘tried to make assassination your weapon, but have failed also, and more than once. Each attempt makes opportunities fewer, and the time, by your own expectation, may be growing short. Does that make you start? Walls have ears, they say. So, be- lieve me, Excellency, have waters, and this lake of yours has learned more secrets of ‘yours than that one. “And now, Gordon, we come to you. You are here—why? Because something in you which I—and you yourself—did not suspect six months ago has come to the top. Something racial, . perhaps— some throw back to instincts familiar to your breed but foreign to the land of your birth. You have been injured. You have brooded, you have magnified, you have struck back. And you have tried to strike hard and you have sought to use any weapon that will make the blow effective. And so you have come to—these!”’ With a comprehensive sweep of her arm she in- dicated the two men who stood beside him and listened, as they had listened to their own condemnation, with imperturb- . able, ominous calm. CO CloOOOLKS C©