Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

36 “Vou said that!” ‘“J—I said nothing of the sort!” Henry Curlew retorted and shot one rather terri- fied glance at James. ‘‘ I may have dozed off for a moment—old age—pretty sick last year—I may have been dreaming. But I assure you, Dixon, that I never said any- thing of the sort. Such an idea never en- tered my head and—”’ He turned on James with a gusty: “‘ Why the dickens didn’t you bring Mrs. Whitmore with you to-night, anyway?” : “ Why didn’t you suggest 1t?” James in- quired vibrantly. “« Suggest it! Confound you, sir, I in- sited on it!” Henry laughed intelligently. “And Mrs. Whitmore couldn’t come, Mr. Whitmore?” thrilled musically across the air from Betty’s direction. _ “She had another engagement, I be- lieve!”’ James said. ‘“ Maybe she doesn’t mind such a terrible lot being left alone,” Dixon grunted. ‘“‘ Shall we—er—discuss the lady at sreater length?” James asked ominously. “Youre in the habit of doing that?” Miss Banford inquired innocently. “‘T am not!” snapped her husband. Henry Curlew blinked rapidly. ‘¢ Well—well,” he contributed. “‘ Offend- ed—naturally, yes. Ask the humblest kind of pardon, Whitmore, of course. Lady her- self would be the first to appreciate the joke, but you’re touchy, Jim.” “Oh! You know Mrs. Whitmore?” said Betty. “Do I know my own partner’s wife, my dear young lady?” Henry inquired with bland reproof. ‘ Oddly, perhaps, I do.” And he added a further deft touch in his pleasant: ‘‘ She’s at the house here very frequently, of course—a very, very charm- ing woman. Full of life—spirits—a_bril- liant mind, too!” ** Oh, yes! I think I’ve seen her!” Bet- ty cried. “Isn’t she blond?” “Very blond—very beautiful golden hair!” said Henry; and there, since even for Dixon’s benefit, he could bring himself to no extended social intercourse with a female employee, he turned abruptly to Dixon himself with: ‘‘ Here! You’re not eating a mouthful!” lentless hands on knife and fork. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘“Haven’t started yet,” the visitor ex- plained and snapped his gaze, which now held real loathing, from James. ‘“‘ You’re not, either, Miss Banford?”’ “T’m not—very hungry.” “You need a good example, kid!” chuckled Mr. Dixon, as he laid great, re- ‘* Just keep an eye on your old Uncle George!” He ate! So, to a greatly modified extent, did the rest of them; and conversation languished, just as it had languished at dinner when Mr. Dixon really devoted himself to the business of eating; and Betty, lips com- pressed, pecked daintily and failed to look up; and Henry Curlew, still slightly aghast, fought off slumber and made some pre- tense at absorbing nourishment. And James thought on, much as a man thinks in a wild delirium. Other things apart, Henry Curlew—a senile wreck and doubtless with a strain of plain idiocy somewhere behind him—had contrived to furnish much new and inter- esting matter for later explanation by James. Putting the thing in the mildest and most considerate way, Betty was fu- rious. James knew every varying curve of those lips. Betty, by the way, had some justification for being furious! It wasn’t at all that James blamed his little Betty; it was the thought of what a maddened Betty, seething with the delusion of a blondly bigamous Mrs. Whitmore, might do before she could be made to understand the truth. James himself was very much of the opinion that any woman can be tormented past the point of endurance. And however crude Dixon might be, he was handsome. The more James looked at him, the more he understood this fact. Brown, big chested, fine featured, simple, wholesome—why, put a soft shirt and a slouch hat and a pair of riding boots on the cumbersome beast, and he might well enough have been expected to sweep from its feet anything feminine from a flapper to a grandmother! es And, once the sweeping process actually had taken place in Betty’s case, James might disregard Curlew and everything else Conmmiclooo S (S@)