Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 16, 1921 — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

ome- fI/fan- | oh Stephen Kaye CHAPTER XVII. AT THE MERCY OF MORRELL. HEN Ella Richards, alias Barbara : A | Alden, looked into Lane Hamlin’s eyes that day in the McGrail of- fice, she had seen enough to satisfy. her. The light in Hamlin’s eyes had been unmis- takable. She had known then that Ham- lin loved her. And though she had hoped for just such an expression in his gaze, she had been overcome with confusion when she saw it. Late that same afternoon when Sayle came in, her face was flushed and her eyes were dancing with happiness. Sayle eyed her keenly as he kissed her, noting her embarrassment. “Hamlin has made his report, I reckon,”’ he said, grinning. She grasped his arms and held them tightly; he could feel her body trembling, the spasmodic twitching of the slender fin- gers on his arms. “Oh, daddy, he loves me!” she whis- pered. “H-m!” rumbled ithe pseudo Sayle. He gently disengaged his arms, seized the girl by the shoulders, and forced her back a little so that he could look into her eyes. What he saw there brought an astonished light into his own. “How do you know? Did he tell you sor”? “Not in words, daddy; he looked it!” ‘““Ht-m! Looked it.” He grinned wide- ly. “Well, I reckon love has got a lan- guage that’s a whole lot better than words. He looked it, eh? What about the veiled lady? Strikes me Hamlin’s sort of scatter- ing his affection some, isn’t he? First he’s dead in love with a woman whose face he didn’t see, and now he’s in love with you. Vd be mightyecareful, Ella. It’s likely he’ll go right out and fall in love with some other woman.’ “Tm not afraid of that!” she declared. ‘““ Why, daddy, his eyes were eloquent!” “Bosh! Any man’s eyes are eloquent to the woman who thinks he is in love with her.”’ ‘“ And, daddy—”’ She ignored his depre- cating words, possibly because they were belied by the softness of his voice. ‘‘ And, daddy,” she repeated; “ he is bashful!” “Well,” pondered Sayle, ‘‘I reckon he would be. That kind of a cuss always is. He'll be cold and steady and civil to me, and he’ll fight with a grin on his face. But he’s usually backward when he’s around women. And he still thinks you are Bar- bara Alden.” “IT believe I would have told him the truth if he had not left so—suddenly. “ ‘““ He won’t run away,” consoled Sayle. - But it seemed to the girl that Hamlin had “ run away.”’ Each time the office door opened she turned toward it, expecting to see Hamlin, and at the end of two days she | began to resent his absence. And if she had not been with her father when she saw Hamlin in the lobby of the Highland, she would have reproached him, she believed. In her room, after kissing her father good night—the kiss that had aroused Ham- lin’s jealousy—she had gone to the dress- ing-table to look into the glass, there to note how the color had come into her face. Of course Hamlin (had brought it, as sight of him had brought the sparkle to the eyes that gazed back at her from the glass. She had seen that Hamlin had been sur- This story began in the Argosy-Allstory Weekly for March 19. t2r GO DOOL|K (C@ S|