Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 73: what you’re looking at

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

VINGO’S LADY SERPENT. She was pleading with him, and she paid no attention to me when I came up. “We're going back to the Clayburns’,” I said. ‘“ And youw’re not going back there, do you understand?” I think she heard my voice, but not the - sense of what I was telling her. She glanced around impatiently, as if she were conscious only that some one, or something, was dis- turbing her, but beyond that she paid no attention. : Anatole Logan was holding her off at arm’s length. He had her by the shoulders, and she seemed to be struggling to get closer to him, and all the time she was talking. It wasn’t good to hear. ““T don’t care, I don’t care,” sue was say- ing in that wild, desperate voice. ‘‘ You know we love each other. You know we’ve been waiting to find each other all our lives. Tony! Why are you acting this way? Don’t you love me?” “Of course I love you,” the young fellow said, but he sounded bored. It was just the way a man of experience would tell a girl he loved her when he didn’t and want- ed to get away. His eyes were straying to the steering wheel of the Mercedes, and I knew he was pretty tired of this little swamp flirtation he had started. ‘‘ And I love you, Tony,’’ Alvina got out in that strange, desperate voice. “I never loved anybody before. I never knew what love was. And we’re going away together, and we’re going to be happy.” She ended on a harsh note, and you knew very well that she was deathly afraid they weren’t going away together. Her sensi- tiveness to the fleeting moods in a man told her that the thing she was hoping for was apt not to come true; that he had never been more than faintly interested in her, and that he was growing more and more bored with her. “ There’s nothing to keep me now,” she started in again. ‘‘ So we can start. Why are you waiting, Tony?” “Where do you want me to take you?” he said, after a long wait. “Anywhere!” she cried. Just so long as we’re together. you so!” _ He looked a little more bored than be- ‘“* Anywhere! Oh, I love 6-883) fore. I don’t think Anatole Logan was more — than fractionally to blame for what was happening or for the dreadful thing that happened in the end. She had thrown her- self at him in the beginning, and she was throwing herself at him now. Well, I suppose it was a brand new and sickening experience to her. He was prob- ably the first man she had ever known who wouldn’t have eaten out of her hand and made a perfect fool of himself five minutes after he met her; her training hadn’t prepared her for a disappointment like this. She had always got what she wanted from men, and here was one who wasn’t going to give her what she wanted, and she was simply frantic with desperation. It was all expressed in their attitudes. There he was, holding her away from him- self at arm’s length, and there she was, in- clining toward him and wanting to hold him in her arms. “IT think we’d better think it over,” the young fellow said in a steady, reasoning voice, “ But there isn’t anything to think over!” she wailed. “There’s my wife,” he said. “I can’t leave her back at the hotel worrying, can I? JI told her I’d be back in time for din- ner, and it must be almost midnight.” “But you love me more than you do her,” Alvina cried. He didn’t answer, and he looked away from her. ‘Oh, you’ve got to!” she burst out. “What am I going to do? You do love me! You do want me! You do!” ‘Tll drive out in the morning,” he said reasonably, “ and we'll talk everything over. This night’s been too much for you. You're upset.” “Youre evading me!” she snapped. ** You’ve got to give me an answer. You've got to choose between me and your wife, and you’ve got to choose now.” “Alvina,” he said quietly, “I love my wife, and I’ve never given you any grounds for thinking that I don’t.” | She backed away from him, into the darkness. “ But what’s to become of me?” she cried. “T don’t know. I only know it makes me a Eomichooks (Ko)