Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 146: what you’re looking at

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456 a | pay and turned her back on him; only a bare hour afterward to ring him up and ask him to take her out to dinner. Truly, women were amazing, thought Wade, and life would be dull without them. Wade’s life would have been dull without them, certainly. Natalie had always attracted him. He had known her before she married; but had not been able to get near her. There had been far too great a crowd. ‘Then, to every one’s surprise, she had married this fellow no one had ever heard of and gone out with him to Africa. At the time people said she would never stick it. The point was, had she stuck it? Did she mean to go back to Africa? It looked as though she had kad enough of Africa. Surely if she were going back she would not have gambled so high. Her husband’s salary was small; altogether a most in- triguing problem. A problem certainly, but as far as Natalie was concerned not particularly in- triguing. In fact, she was in the deuce of a mess. It was no good repeating to herself that she had been a fool. That was ob- vious. _ She ought never to have gambled, in the first place. Only Wade had persuaded her - _just for the fun of the thing, he said. _ Well, that was an argument that had al- __ ways appealed to Natalie. She would jump a gate out hunting for the same reason. Then when she found she had lost twenty- five pounds—and twenty-five pounds was _ twenty-five pounds, when one’s husband’s salary was fifty pounds a month—she began to think. Wade was there to help her. “Vou were very unlucky,” he said. « You held no cards at all. Never mind— get it back to-morrow.” - This was where she ought to have de- - clared quite firmly that she was never going to play again. But she hadn’t, and that was all there was to it. Well, she didn’t get the money back the next night, or the night after; instead, she got deeper in the mud. Wade told her not to worry; her luck was sure to turn. It didn’t. There came the fatal evening. A game for-high points was suggested, The ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. chance offered to get back all she had lost. Wade urged her to take-it. Natalie hesi- tated. She—she—hadn’t got the money, not at the moment. Wade made light of this. That was all right; he would see her through, he promised. However foolishly, she let him. And now he held her check for five hundred pounds. To-morrow he would present it at the bank, and it would be dishonored. There was nothing to do but to tell him the situation frankly. He suggested he would give her one more chance to get out. After all, he was a rich man, and knew he would be paid eventually. When she put the matter to Wade she got the shock of her life. His easy geniality vanished like a mirage. He said perfectly clearly that he was going to Monte Carlo the next evening, and that he would require the money before he went unless—unless she should care to go to Monte Carlo, too. His meaning left no shadow of doubt. His intentions if she refused were adamant. He would notify the secretary of the club about the check, and Natalie would be posted. By eight o’clock the following night she would be dishonored. She could not even plead that she had suddenly lost her head and gambled above her means. The episode was a capital crime, the sequel to a series of peccadillos. There were others to whom she owed a lot of money, but not» a large sum like this. Looked at one way, she was lucky to have escaped so long as she had. This, then, was the situation when she got back to her flat at seven o’clock. She had sat down before her fire and smoked cigarette after cigarette. Some way musé be found to make Wade give her another chance. At seven thirty she came to a conclusion, and telephoned him. At eight fifteen she stood appareled, bathed, per- fumed, to greet him, dressed—as he thought —for the sacrifice. “Where would you like to dine?” he asked. “ At the Café de Rome; we can dance there.”’ Wade was quite agreeable to this. - Their oO Eomichooks.co