All Story Magazine, December 1913 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

A THIEVES’ COMEDY. out referring to her lack-luster expres- sion, as if she had not a particle of interest in life but the wearing of pretty clothes and the preserving of a truly wonderful complexion. Her dull gold hair, arranged in a carefully careless fashion, detracted nothing from the girlishness of her small oval face. The eyebrows were several shades darker than the hair, and her eyes, so deep a brown as to be al- most black, would have been most at- tractive and appealing if they had not been so devoid of activity. But there was an indefinable some- thing in them at times that made me wonder if the lackadaisical attitude was not a clever affectation. I imagined that Miss Margaret Rollins would have given several years of her young life to get up from that table and run— anywhere away from it. She made only a pretense of eating, and when I caught her looking at me through some flowers that obscured a perfect view, I had an impression that for some reason or other she was weighing me in the balance, and was fearful of being detected in it, not by me so much as by some of the others, Not once did she speak all the whiie we sat at table. It was rather a nervous affaix for me, and I’m afraid I was stupid in some of my remarks, but Campbell car- ried the burden of protecting me from danger-line subjects, such as the trip over and the people my hostess thought we both might know; and _ Rollins, peculiarly enough, seemed anxious to assist him. Campbell laughed the voyage away with a joke at my expense. He ad- mitted that I had been on board the Randania and that he had known of it, but I was such a wretched sailor I hadn’t left my cabin, and had begged to be excused from meeting any one until I’d got ashore. Appearing not to take any heed of Miss Rollins’s rather sneaking scrutiny, but to listen very attentively to some- thing her father was saying about being 735 disturbed on board ship only when the screw got out of the water, I had a peculiar notion that his daughter did not believe Campbell’s story about me. I could not understand that girl. One moment she was bright with even a sug- gestion of deviltry and shrewdness hiding behind the screen her doll-like beauty made; then she would cast a sidelong questioning glance toward her father, as if she were afraid he might be watching her, and the mask of lethargic indifference would fall again. Campbell’s personality, of course, dominated the whole table, but I could not help thinking that Alice was just a little too transparent in her efforts to avoid such remarks as he directed to her. I had a strange jumble of impres- sions that night, and later, when we joined the ladies in the drawing-room, I received a few more. Rollins and I—because Rollins seemed afraid to leave me for a moment —entertained (?) Mrs. Van Huysen with a list of places which he thought would be of interest to an Englishman. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Ralph inveigle his cousin— and fiancée—out of the room to where I surmised the conservatory ought to be. Upon a settee, just far enough dis- tant to prevent what they said being: heard, Campbell and Alice also con- versed in low tones; and, judging by the girl’s attitude, I felt that their con- versation would make interesting read- ing. She was leaning away from him, as if she were not very anxious to hear what he was saying, and_ because she had to listen, tried to assume an air of careless unconcern not altogether successful since I, whose perspicacity isn’t “nything to make a fuss about, could see that she was not finding Campbell’s remarks yery pleasant. Just as I threatened to become rude in my lack of attention to her mother, Alice rose abruptly and came _ to- ward us. comicloooks.com