Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

By ARTHUR MILLS I did not think Wade Caley a cad. He » subsequentl:’ asked me a much more startling question, and one more difficult to answer. But as regards the original inquiry his grounds for making it were [: the first place, Bob Summers asked if _. Wade apparently had been encouraging Natalie to gamble. He had introduced her to.a club where cards were played for high points. — - Natalie, it might be supposed, could look ~ after herself in such a matter. But accord- ‘ing to Bob she had virtually been trapped, not realizing the nature of the stakes until she found-herself in difficulties. “Wade oughtn’t to do it,” said Bob. “He knows she can’t afford to lose. It is just like him, though. He’ll stick at noth- ing where a woman is concerned. I don’t believe he would even hesitate to cheat at cards. Some one ought to have shot him long ago.” We all loved Natalie. In the days before she married she had been ultramodern, even in ultramodern times. To every one’s sur- prise, she had married a fellow with no money—a very decent sort of chap who had a job as a game ranger Somewhere in Af- rica, and gone out with him to some God- forsaken spot. Now after two years she had come home for a change, leaving the husband out there. Attractive at all times, even more so since her absence, it was not long before Wade Caley was running after her. There was nothing new in this. Wade was always running after some presentable woman. It was all he lived for, and he could afford the hobby. He had paid two thousand pounds for a two-seater car. Any other man buying a car at such a price would have had one with four seats. But Wade said no woman could resist a really luxurious two-seater. That was the sort of fellow he was. He was a big, fresh-complexioned chap, with rather prominent- blue eyes, always well dressed, well fed, and well circum- stanced. A lot of people laughed at him 454 Eomichooks (E@)