Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 56: what you’re looking at

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

46 Val through the communicating device. The car grated to a halt, Val pushed the door open. “Thank you for your advice,” he said calmly. ‘‘ When I feel in need of any more I'll let you know. I expect to see Miss Pomeroy to-night,” he informed him gra- tuitously. There was no necessity for tell- ing him this, but. Val shrewdly suspected that he already knew, so there was no Bane in the parting shot. The other shrugged his shoulders again. ‘Ah, well, youth—” he said, almost as though he were thinking aloud. He stood on the curb and bowed his thanks in a court- ly manner as the car swung off on its way uptown. CHAPTER XI, “* JUST WHO IS THIS MAN?” ORE food for thought. It was begin- M ning to look to Val as though this man, who was in this business so mysteriously and so unexplainedly, was to be the storm center around which the affair revolved. He had made it plain that Val’s presence in any way was unwelcome; there had even been a veiled threat. Why did the man who had no hands de- sire him to keep away? Why was it so im- portant that he had gone to the trouble personally to warn him? And now that he knew Val suspected him of having been in his room and stolen the books from him, undoubtedly he knew that Val, in his mind, implicated him in the murder of the book- seller. For there also the books had been the only things taken—the books sold by Miss Pomeroy. ‘That being the case he would from now on, beyond all doubt, con- sider Val as more than a rival for the at- tention of Miss Pomeroy, if indeed they were rivals. Probably, Val hoped, he would consider him as rather a dangerous enemy. That was good; he would rather have this man an open enemy than a lukewarm ac- quaintance, rather a finish fight with him than continual skirmishing and veiled at- tacks. One got somewhere by a fight— either one was victorious or he lost; either the spoils of victory were his or the losses ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY; of defeat. In either event he could know where he stood. 3 In a ferment of imagination and anticipa- tion he lounged in Peacock Alley and waited for the coming of the girl with the burnished copper hair. As he sat there, seemingly ob- livious to the teeming life that went on all around him, up and down the splendid room, more than one approving glance from feminine eyes was cast in his direction. In his dinner coat he was a figure to attract the second glance of any woman and most men. There was about him none of the glory of the man in his holiday attire— evening clothes were to him a part of his nature—he wore them as he did his shoes, without being aware of them. Half a dozen times he consulted his watch. It did not seem to hasten her arrival in the least. But then he was a bit early. If you have a& appointment with a lady at seven thirty it is absurd to expect her there at seven twenty. He told himself this and contained his impatience as well as he could. He began to wonder whether she really would meet him; whether she would not change her mind and decide that, after all, it was best not to see him now. This pro- duced in him no feeling of trepidation, be- cause he would have gone to her if she had not come to him—if she did not come to- night he would go to her apartment and all the world could not stop him. If she did not-— He rose hastily, because at this moment he caught a glimpse of her at the end of the long corridor, halting in slight uncer- tainty. The evening had turned chilly with the first approach of autumn, and she wore a blue and gold wrap above the furry col- lar of which her head, encased in a lacy something, showed like a fragrant field flow- er. He hastened down the room to meet her, and she stood stock still to await his approach. - “‘ Am I late, dear benefactor?” she asked, extending her hand to him. He bent above it and kissed the very tips of her tiny fin- gers—a trick he had learned in Europe and which seemed perfectly in order when he did it. “You will always seem late when I wait oO CcommicloOokSs (©)