Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

660 Warren went to sleep again with Eve kneeling beside him. She got up presently and smiled at Betty, who had turned and was watching her. Then Eve went out and softly closed the door. Betty did not follow Eve. She stood near the window, looked for an instant at the door which Eve had closed, and then silent- ly moved to the side of the bed, where she stood many minutes looking down at Warren. She heard Eve’s step in the living room; heard the step gradually recede. Then she kneeled on the floor beside the bed and did to Warren the things that Eve had done, in the same way, with the same gentleness, the same delicate restraint. Her kiss upon the sleeping man’s lips was firmer, though, for Warren stirred slightly and smiled. Warren moved one hand, and his eyelids fluttered. Whereupon, Betty got swiftly to her feet and went again to the window, where with her back to Warren she blushed, though her eyes were alight with defiance. CHAPTER VII. “WOULD YOU CARE?” HE enigma of Betty’s presence at the Circle B was not more puzzling to Channing and Eve than to Wayne Warren from the first time he had opened his eyes after the accident until now, when fully conscious and in complete comprehen- sion of everything that was happening around him, he watched her as she moved about the room. His first clear recollection of her dated back several days ago, when he had opened his eyes to see her and Eve in the room, watching him. He had a vague mental picture of Betty before that, in a time when he seemed to have been dreaming. He had seen her face close to his several times, but his vision had seemed faulty and she had appeared to be some distance from him, in a haze. But by reasoning a little he finally concluded that the girl had been hovering near him for several days before he had succeeded in getting a good grip upon his consciousness. Now, though he had fixed her clearly in ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. his mind as a living entity, and as a minis- tering human of rare beauty, he had not solved the mystery of her presence. And he was filled With a torturing curiosity con- ~ cerning her. ‘You have been here for some time, Miss—” He paused. Standing beside the dresser upon which were several bottles of medicine and some glasses, she smiled. ‘* Betty,” she provided. | *“‘ Miss Betty,” Warren repeated. ‘‘ There must be more of it,” he added. “That is quite enough for the present.” “Then it will have to do,” he answered, with an air of patient resignation. ‘‘ But perhaps you will help me to get a certain mystery cleared up. It is this: Were you at the Circle B before I came or did you come afterward?” “I came afterward. In the evening of the first day.”” | “Then I haven’t been dreaming so much after all. Several things that I remember must really have happened.” To his astonishment her cheeks grew sud- denly crimson. He watched her from his pillow, marveling over the miracle. She was greatly embarrassed, and the fact that she turned her back to him and pretended to be busy with the bottles on the dresser cid not mislead him. But he had no desire to embarrass her further. As a matter of fact, he assured himself that though she was very beautiful, absolutely bewitching in her embarrassment, his feeling toward her was merely that of sratitude over the care and attention she had given him. She was good to look at, of course, but she was not attractive enough to sway his thoughts seriously from Eve. Yet he wondered why it was that now he was fully awake and in tune with life again, he did not immediately ask for Eve. He felt a sudden sense of guilt, and asked that Eve be sent to him. “Miss Winthrop is out riding,” Betty informed him. * With Channing, I presume.” Betty nodded affirmatively. Though Betty covertly watched Warren for signs of mental disturbance over the news she had given him, she decided he was not jealous of Channing. But Warren’s head Commicooolks (S@)