Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 17, 1924 — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

234 rio, preparations for An Evening With the Prince of Magic went forward smoothly. He rented a huge barnlike structure which had been erected by the Germans during their occupation for use as an auditorium; hired men to paste up hundreds of lurid lithographs—depicting a satanic Rhoda sur- rounded by a group of winged green de- mons—and Marcene wrote advertisements and publicity for the Nish journals. Farley soon forgave her for having be- guiled him and his two hundred pounds into her father’s services on that starlit night on the hotel balcony—if she had be- guiled him. He could even glean some pleasure from the probability. If she had gone about deliberately to ensnare him, she deserved great credit, did she not, for her success against such seasoned experience? She was, in all her father’s business transactions, clever and shrewd. She drove bargains with the greediness of an Arme- nian; she saw through trickery with the clairvoyance of a Greek; she had an eye for details and a resourceful imagination. But with Farley she was a wistful, myste- rious child. She was wonderful. He soon passed through the early stages, the painful stages, of infatuation, to a calm and orderly realization that Marcene was indispensable to his happiness. He en- visioned their life together—an adventure of never ending delight in the remote places of the world. It was amazing. No woman had appealed to him in this way before, ‘They had bridged the gap from strangeness to friendship in hours!» They were, it seemed to him, quietly happy and content- ed together. They understood each other perfectly. Their evenings they devoted to strolling about Nish, poking into interesting corners, talking. Talking! He likened it once to the union of two responsive chemicals— fizzing endlessly. They thought and reacted similarly. Occasionally they longed for the orderly, automatic luxury of America. Occasionally they longed for deserts and mountains and seas. And on the night before the Great Rhoda was advertised to perform Farley took his life in his hands— and kissed Marcene. _ They were strolling down an empty sepet ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, toward the Nishava. The moon, fuller, brighter than it had been on that other night, sifted a lavender and silver haze upon the expanse of motionless water. They stopped in the moonlight to admire the enchanting beauty of this view, and the moon silvered Marcene’s wistful pro- file; her straight, proud forehead, her lash- es, her small Irish nose, her pouting lips, her resolute little chin. He studied her tenderly, his thoughts drifting to distant scenes, cities bright with music and laugh- ter. Nish was a gloomy place for lovers. Beyond a wall gypsies began to play violins and a zymbalon, The eerie music of the wind-swept Hungarian plains throbbed in the still street. The tempo quickened to a chardash. It plucked at them insistently, as if defying their pulses not to beat faster, their eyes not to shine; then it became softer, hesitated, dreamed off into the sadly appealing strains of the Volga Waltz. Farley was enchanted—intoxicated. “It is stirring and sweet,” Marcene said. He could no more have prevented himself from swinging her into his arms than the Nishava could prevent itself from swinging into the sea. He kissed her and held her, looking down into her frightened eyes. He held her firm- ly, sternly, as if to shield her from the harshness of life, from the imponderable hate of that dying man with the blackness in his heart. iV. THE Great Rhoda remained in his bed until the very last moment. Marcene and Farley insisted on this, and Farley mar- veled at the man’s courage. The fever had wasted him; he was almost too weak to stand, The peasants from miles around had swarmed into Nish as American farmers swarm to town when a circus comes. Entire families debouched from ox-carts, some from villages as far as twenty miles away. They were decked out in all their home- spun, home-dyed finery. They began to gather outside the auditorium three hours before the show would start. They waited patiently, nibbling at large chunks of goat’s- milk cheese and sipping wine from gourds, COMICLOoOokKs (C@