Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

374 with such an air of almost manly frank- ness that he looked up into her face with wonder. If this were acting, it was great acting indeed! “Somebody,” she said gravely, ‘“‘ has tipped you to a bum steer.”’ Fire flecked her eyes. ‘“ Some low-life has been knock- ing me! Hand it to me straight. What’s up?” He lost the sense of the words, he lost the sense of her anger, except that it made her marvelously lovely, and a great impulse to take her in his arms became so strong that restraining it, his hands trembled. ‘““ Sit down,” ‘the suggested. She obeyed, but she caught her chair up and placed it close to his, so that her knees almost touched his knees. Then she leaned forward and frowned combatively at him. “ Now we'll have this out,” said her whole attitude. ‘¢ She’s going to try ‘to convince me once for all,” thought the Tiger, and if he hated her for thinking him gullible, he could not but admire the fine temper of her bluff. It had a ring like true metal. He would have to begin with caution. ‘We are friends, Mary?” “We are,” said the girl, ‘‘ pals.” And her smile snapped the chain of iis thoughts and his suspicions. For always when he was hardening himself for some accusation there was a turn of the head, a waving of that exquisite hand, a flash of white as the sleeve rippled back from her arm, or a play of light in her eyes that dis- armed ‘him. She seemed possessed of in- exhaustible powers; the very quality of her voice was a weapon and, listening to it, he forgot the slang and heard only the sound. “We are pals,’ she had said, and her eyes were so wide and looked so straight into his that surely if there were an unclean secret in her life he could have read it. He thought of those girls at Mrs. Thomas Harding’s dinner. What one of them could admit him into her rooms at midnight and later, and bolt the door, and sit down op- posite him in nightgown and dressing-robe, and yet keep him perfectly at arm’s length? Only the pure of mind and heart could do this thing. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. He began to argue with himself, eagerly: “It was long ago—she was only a child— she had no precepts and no preceptors— and she hardly knew what she did. After all,’”’ he said, in that swift, silent summing- up, “ the only sins are the conscious ones.” But when he lifted his eyes from those thoughts it seemed to him that a shadowy head leered at him over the girl’s shoulder— the Baboon! - And in his agony he caught at her hands and held them and cried: “‘ Mary, for God’s cake tell me the truth! If you'll confess to me, it ‘ll take the sting away, I think. Haven't I a right to ask?” Her hands slipped out of his. “ You’ve been talking with Wagner,” she accused him. ‘ Come clean, Tiger! You’ve been talking with Wagner!”’ His first impulse was to ask: ‘‘ Who is Wagner?” but he checked that impulse hastily. “What of that?” he queried. “What of that?” she echoed bitterly. ‘D’you think it’s a clean thing to get be- hind my back and pump a cheap elbow for what he knows about me?” He folded his arms and studied her face, calmly as he could. Still acting, he decided, and he could not help admiring her, but at the same time that admiration was killing the old passion; it was simply a critica: esteem. She seemed to weaken under that quiet look and she made a little gesture of appeal. “He told you that old yarn, I know,” she said. ‘ He accused me of shoving the queer.” It was Greek ‘to ‘the Tiger, but he de- cided to say nothing; to wait, and let her own tongue unwind the secret. But she grew suddenly fierce. ‘Tf you’re that kind,” she said, “ I’m through with you. Absolutely!” He turned slowly toward the door; he was almost at it when she ran quickly in front of him and pushed him back with her eyes. “Tiger, [ll tell you. IT oughtn’t to. I ought to let you go. But it—it makes me sick to know that that cur Wagner , blabbed!”’ ; There was no diame. diet. ies sae