Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 106: what you’re looking at

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

576 your business judgment,” Alice cried, not to be put off. “ You back up Mr. Moody!” “My dear Alice—and Mr. Hill! Please be reasonable! Mr. Moody is manager of our company, picked from a hundred men and paid highly for his ability. It is not my policy to reverse his judgment and I have no intention of doing it—even in this case.” “Quite right, sir, I’m sure,” Hill ap- proved. “Of course, you miss a good chance, but somebody else will profit by “My misfortune,” Arnold answered briefly, rather skeptically. But Hills gaze had turned on the radiant Alice. For her he had endured everything, gone without, suffered. To find her salary of fifteen dollars a week he had pawned even his watch! | “Good God!” he muttered, “ what a fool T have been! Well, I get out here. Glad - to have met you, Mr. Arnold. Good night, Miss Arnold—” “Oh, say!” Arnold protested hastily, “let us drop you at your hotel. No trouble at all—” “‘'You must let us take you there!” Alice insisted. “Sit down at once. Mr. Hill —please!” “Where to?” Arnold asked. Hill submitted. It didn’t matter. Noth- ing mattered. Let them have their way. It saved argument and he lacked the spirit to argue. S “Where to, Mr Hili?” Arnold asked again. ‘Hill realized the question with a start. Where to? Where did he live, anyway? Not in the Ajax Building! Not for mil- lions would he admit his poverty now! The world had laughed at him enough, hu- miliated him enough. And this final joke, to find the girl he was fighting for was not a pauper—could buy and sell him a hundred times over in fact! Let her laugh with the rest of them? Not much. “What address did you say, Mr. Hill?” Arnold repeated. Hill had not said, but he did then. He remembered a building, an impressive hotel, quiet, exclusive—a club for rich men, pre- sumably. He had looked at it on strolls, & ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. thinking of the day he might be rich and patronize it. He gave the address off-hand. - The limousine made quick work of it, but none too quick for Hill. Abeve all things he wanted to be quit of Alice and her father. He wanted to be alone with his grief and humiliation. He couldn’t sit there and chatter like a fool, not even for Alice! Once she reached forward and her fingers touched his hand. “I am so sorry,” she said and her eye meant it. Pride forced him to laugh lightly. “ Oh, that’s your father’s loss, not mine! But I’m sorry to lose such a good secretary—” Alice’s eyes widened and her lip trembled. “ Of course, if you want me to go—’’ she murmured. Hill said nothing. Want her to go! As if he could endure the daily reproach of her presence longer! Besides—he couldn’t find another week’s wages for her under any circumstances. He kept silent and Alice drew back into the shadows, silent, too. The limousine stopped before the ad- dress Hill had given. “Here we are!” Arnold cried with as- sumed cheerfulness as he peered out. “Good night, Hill. Sorry we can’t do busi- ness. Some other time, perhaps—” “ Good night—and thank you both,” Hill murmured and leaped out hastily. He squared his shoulders and strolled jauntily across the pavement toward the handsome, lighted doorway. Confound them! They were still watching him. He affected to delay, looking at the sky, swinging his stick. The limousine would never go! He sum- moned his resolution and pushed through the open door of a vestibule. The limousine moved on at last. Hill saw it from the corner of his eye and sighed with relief that he need push his bluff no farther. He emerged cautiously from the vestibule, saw the tail lights of the Armold car round a corner and strode on his way to the Ajax building and what he called, - with facetious bitterness, ‘‘ home.” Hill pushed through his outer office, un- locked the stock room door and paused in the midst of the bare room, staring about at the inhospitable scene. Dishes, some of them unwashed, stood on the kitchen table. The electric iron and the damp towel he Eomicboo <S (C©)