Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 111: what you’re looking at

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

PRIDE OF TYSON. to find a lamb, and instead they would walk in on a tiger. And she looked up at Tyson with something akin to affection. He would fight her battle. Garth was calling as he came: Oh, mother!” The door flew open, and he stood with a lighted face, the gleam was in his eyes, the smile of triumph on his lips. “‘ Mother,” he said again, “ ’ve—”’ And then he saw Tyson, and his voice “ Mother! stopped. ““ Well,” he said, his color rising, ‘“ this is a surprise. -How are you?” He began to approach, but the voice of Tyson in his greeting checked the big man at a distance like a stretched out, invisible hand. “I’ve come to see Margaret,’”’ he said quietly. ‘‘ Do you know if she’s in?” The embarrassment of Garth was in- creasing, and the heart of his mother went cold. She knew that the battle had indeed commenced, and the first part had gone against her. As plainly as if he had spoken it in words, she knew that her son had come to tell her that he had asked Margaret Tyson to marry him, and_ had been accepted. - “Yes, she’s in her room, I believe. By the. way ’”—he checked himself again—I’ll show you up, if you wish.” “‘ No,” said Mrs. Garth, rising, ‘“‘ I'll take hm up.” ‘ “ Then Ill be waiting for you down here, mother. See you later, Tyson.” And Mrs. Garth led her champion out of the room. Once the door closed behind them, shutting out Garth, she reached for the younger man with a fumbling hand, found his arm, and clung to.t. Her dizzi- ness lasted only a moment. | “It’s happened,” she said. ‘‘I seen it in Eddie’s face. Mr. Tyson, what ’re we going to do?” , “ I think I shall find something,” he said. They started up the stairway, and even in her agony of pain and suspense she noted the graceful ease with which he helped her, his hand under her elbow. And she felt the steely, flexible strength of his arm, and when he spoke there was quiet ring to his voice. 617 She compared him with her boy as one compares a rapier of tempered, priceless steel with a battle-ax of ponderous metal with a chopping edge. A different sort of force, but one fully as deadly, she felt. If she had warned this man in time— but it was useless to talk of “ifs.”’ She clasped his hand in both of hers when they . stood just outside Margaret’s door. ‘SGod teach you what to say and do,” she prayed in a fervent whisper. And he answered in an ordinary speaking voice: “Thank you very much.” She watched with hungry, yearning eyes as he rapped at the door and then disap- peared within the room. He found Margaret in the very act of throwing off her linen duster, and she turned to him with flushed cheeks. ““Hal!”” she cried. ‘“ Hal, dear, you couldn’t have come at a better time.” He stood by the door, making ne move to greet her. - “T don’t believe that I could,” he said. They studied each other, she with the smile dying on her face, and he with a smile growing, an unpleasant smile to see. Then he went and sat easily on the foot of the bed, very close to her, and swinging one foot. He might have come to gossip about the weather, to watch him. “* Now what’s all this nonsense about?” he said directly. She stopped with one glove worked half off her hand, and the color of her cheeks became a flare of fire. “Edward told me he wouldn’t tell you till I had had a chance—Hal, you don’t mean you disapprove?” It was as if she had struck him across the face with a whip. He became a sickly sight. “It’s true then, Margaret? You’ve prom- ised to marry that—”’ He stopped. “ Don’t look at me as if I were a leper,” she answered hotly. Then, bewildered: “In Heaven’s name, what’s wrong with you? Isn’t Edward the man you praised as if he were a sort of demigod, a new Titian, a builder, an empire-maker? I for- get all the wild terms you used!”’ “One praises a strong horse for much the same reasons.” ' Ufo ‘(OOO C