Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 74: what you’re looking at

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asked, with a more unmasked anger than she had ever seen in him before. ‘“ What are you up to now, stealing around the house like a ghost?” “Not like a ghost,’”’ breathed Olivetta, “but seeing ghosts!” There was an exclamation from Hugh Dascom. - “What do you mean by that, child? Come in here with me!” He drew her to the side into a little upper study which was his favorite room and switched on a light. CHAPTER VIII. OLIVETTA PREPARES, E was dressed in tweed, knickerbock- ers and heavy walking shoes. One pocket of the coat bulged with the gun which he had just dropped into it. In that one respect he possessed qualifi- cations as an outdoors, even as a sporting man: he practiced assiduously with a re- volver and he was inordinately vain of his prowess with that weapon. He prized the accomplishment not because a gun was of much use to him as a hunting weapon, but taken in combination with the rest of his rather unmuscular characteristics, his skill. with a gun provided a pleasant con- trast. Hardy men of the outdoors who had spent the morning bragging of the deeds in the saddle or with rod and line, quite contemptuous of dainty Hugh Dascom, were apt to be taken all aback when they ~ gaw him produce a revolver and blow the head from a squirrel twenty-five yards away. For such reasons he prided himself on his use of the gun. And although he fired not ten rounds a year at living game, he shot off pound upon pound of ammuni- tion in practice upon his targets. -Olivetta had always felt that she under- stood exactly why her father used a gun so much and she had somewhat despised him for it. But now, more or less in spite of herself, that bulge in his pocket thrilled her. It endowed him with a new manliness. And, indeed, there was something about his coolness which made him seem wonder- oe fully strong. Though, of course, he could - gtroll,” he said. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, not know what she had seen and heard in the past few moments. In the meantime, he was surveying her with a curious atten- . tion. * “Damned insomnia got me up for a “ But I say, Olivetta, you mustn’t prance around the house like this at all hours of the night! Where the deuce have you been?” The whole truth trembled upon the tip of her tongue. But when she was about to speak it seemed to her that all of her ad- venture boiled down to a beggarly small bit. John Hodge, out for a walk like others in that household that night, had stepped into the library. Not wishing to disturb others with a flare of all the lights thrown on from the switch, he had taken his pocket torch and with it gone to the globe to locate some point of interest. While he leaned over it, he had been startled by a sound at the window. He had glanced in that direction. He had seen a figure disappearing, so he thought, from before it. He had rushed to examine, leaped out to the garden below, but there he had found that there was no one in sight. _ After all, what could be more coherent, more easily defensible than such a state- ment? And as she ran over the details, Olivetta herself was half convinced. She saw that she must not tell what she had seen, and what deductions she had drawn from what she had seen. So she shrugged her shoulders and managed a tolerably suc- cessful smile. ‘I don’t suppose this is just the costume for a midnight stroll,” she admitted. “ But you know I have your own trouble. The same insomnia kept me awake. I got up— went for a stroll—and that’s all there is to it!” She laughed rather breathlessly. Hugh Dascom was lighting a cigarette. When he looked up to her, she saw that he did not believe a word he had heard. He avowed it frankly. “ Olivetta,” he said, “ I see that you have a great and growing talent for telling fibs. Let me have the truth about this night walking of yours, will you?” He was so quiet, so absurdly unlike the avetage pompous © parent, that her heart — €O a ebook S Eom — Jt - — SSEe “St ~~ oe * eee — a ~ ——- = = ——— = SS SO get ig, i wg ne ode tt “- EES SSS Se Se ESF