Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

B86 _ “Well,” said Mrs. Garth dryly. like Miss Tyson as well as ever?” He didn’t seem to hear her for a mo- ment, and then he turned and cast out his hands in a gesture of impatience. ° “Is it a question of whether or not we like her? . Mother, dear, I wonder what she thinks of us?” “‘ Personally,” said his mother stiffly, “I could get along without knowing.” But Garth had resumed his brooding and pacing. For the first time in his life he was walking a path on which she could not join him. She looked at the sway of his broad shoulders, and wondered how there could be any human problem sufficient to “D’you stand in his path; and then she looked at the chair where Margaret Tyson had sat. Suddenly. Garth stopped and faced her again. os ‘ What’s wrong with all this?” he asked, with a broad gesture. “Wrong with what?” “ Wrong with the room—wrong with our- selves. Everything was all right until she came; and now everything’s impossible! What ; is it?” She could have told him, ‘but her greatest. wisdom lay in- her careful selection of silences. CHAPTER XXVI. GRAPEFRUIT AND OTHER THINGS. HE wore something white; she looked as cool as a flower; and as fragile of color; she had greeted him pleasantly but without enthusiasm; he “had failed to seat her at the table. . These things and a jumble of others filled the mind of Garth as they sat at breakfast. Also, he felt the quiet eye of his mother upon him. He knew that she did not like Margaret Tyson; he knew that she would be trebly pleased if anything should come between the girl and himself. In the mean time he went ahead, eating absent-mindedly and thinking and trying to plan. In the midst of this, the cool eye of Margaret flickered across him and brought him up standing, so to speak. There had been aversion, contempt, disgust, in that OO aes cl cage ity Google = = Ra OP ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. glance. He could not tell what. Perhaps none of the three, but certainly an element of coldness. Then he discovered that he was squeezing the last of the juice out of his grapefruit into his spoon—and she was hardly started on her own fruit. Heaven alone could tell him how he had progressed so rapidly. He must have been eating like a mucker shovel- ing coal; and that would explain the quiet content in the eye of his mother also. “Can you tell me about the hotels in La Blanca?” the girl was saying. ig “ Certainly,” nodded Mrs. Garth. “ Hotels?” echoed Garth heavily. “ What do you want to know about hotels?” “T have to make a choice among them, you know,” smiled Margaret Tyson. His heart fell a vast distance, and his throat became dry. | “Why, -you’re going to stay here, areti’t you, Miss Tyson?” — She seemed mildly, rather coolly sur- prised. Yet had it not been understood the evening before that she would stay with -them while she was in La Blanca? “You're very kind,” smiled Margaret Tyson. ‘“T really can’t do that.” “Why not?” - At his blunt question he caught just a flicker of her lashes against her cheek. He had cornered her, he felt, rather brutally, but quite effectually. Then his mother went swiftly and quietly to her assistance. “Of course you know that you're wel- come here, Miss Tyson,” she said. “But I understand, well enough, that you'd feel freer in a hotel. And there’s a perfectly good hotel in town.” Garth could have browbeaten her like a man, for that speech. He cast a sharp, ominous glance at her, and then looked back to Margaret Tyson. She was nodding and smiling in relief at Mrs. Garth. Con- found these women and their subtleties! “Hotel?” he growled. “Not fit for a dog. Couldn’t think of letting you go there. Not at all. Why, there’s only one, and that’s full of the greasers. Terrible place, Miss Tyson.” There was rather worry than hesitation in her eyes. Mrs. Garth came to her rescue again. ~ ae cette isn a tee DIT, | re ” THE OHIO S ae UN ROR ! -_ Ly P t