Adventure Magazine Cover — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

6 3 Adventure ~~ She was nervous and troubled, and I _ knew something of what the heavy lines that fell from her nostrils to the corners of her mouth meant. The mouth itself was drawn tightly; the full lips were thinned by having been set hard. Yet hers was a pleasant face lighted from an inner glow of contentment. I will call it a beautiful face. All beautiful faces have the mark of tragedy upon them. She was tall, well-poised and, I would have guessed, somewhere above fifty—ob- viously the mother of the girl who had met me at the door. | ‘*Vou wish to see me?”’ she asked. I referred at once to a letter addressed to her that had come to my attention. There was no mistaking the importance of that letter to her. At the first mention she stiffened as one does to receive a blow. I may have imagined it, but it seemed to me that she also assumed, for a second, a grim reconciliation to the blow that was expected. It was as if she rather knew blow after blow of some kind would reach her, and she had reached the age of passive resistance. I then told her precisely what had hap- pened and extended the letter. “T do not know what the letter contains. I do not wish to know. It has been read only. by a drunken fellow who may believe he merely dreamed what he read. And I have brought it in person so that you may be assured that nobody, except the fellow mentioned, has meddled with the contents.” She said nothing for a moment, but reached out a hand that trembled slightly and laid it on my arm, and the fingers closed for an instant in a way deeply ex- pressive of gratitude. Mrs. Curwen looked at me with a kind of suspended admiration in her eyes and asked— ' ‘What did you say your name was?” I told her. I had not at that time taken the name of Everhard. My family name is Richmond. I told her—‘‘Don Richmond.” Almost incredulously she exclaimed: “Don Richmond—you! A mere boy— and you are the man who struck Jim Thrope in the face? JI—I—have often wondered about you. A mere boy!” My shoulders stiffened a little as I re- marked that I was twenty-four, and no doubt my manner implied that twenty-four was a full-grown, manly age. “I understand,” she said quietly, almost proudly as if in some way I was closely related to her, “why this letter has been returned—unread! And do you know,,- I would doubt almost any other man that brought it!” I looked at her in puzzlement and asked— “Do you know me?” “Yes—I know that you hit Jim Thrope in a crowded dance-hall; hit him in the face before all of his friends. Yes indeed, I do know you!” And she impulsively caught my hand into both of hers and pressed it. I did not understand. With quick, maternal-like half-phrases she regretted that I was a gambler and lived such a life. = “A professional gambler for six years!” she exclaimed. ‘I knew you were young— but so young!’ . She said that she had heard all about the affair—more even than was in the papers, some of which called me a young ruffian who was boasting he had insulted so dis- tinguished and honorable a citizen as James H. Thrope. And one or two of the papers which told something like the truth colored it rather highly in my favor because they happened to be politically opposed to, Thrope. The basic fact, which nobody knew, was. that I hated Thrope instinctively. His. eyes—it is into the eyes that one looks for: an understanding of people—were the in- solent, lewd, vicious eyes of the bully. I never saw him without wanting to, strike him in the face. Something of what that meant may be conveyed when I ex- plain that, in all the troubles I have been. into and got out of, I have never struck a half-dozen men with my fists. (4, I NIGHT came when Thrope was, Og: on one of his periodical debauches. Xs” and came into the Empress Dance- hall, where I chanced to be awaiting an, appointment. “He was sober enough, but this time it would probably not have made. any difference to me if he had been drunk. A little fool of a dance-hall girl, ambitious. to get attention from so distinguished a rounder, clutched at his coat. He turned, at one glance saw that she was not pretty, then drove his fist into her face; and many people laughed. Thrope was always followed on such occasions by friends ‘of the kind—by men who would laugh if a woman’s face ran blood. Gomichboo <SGO