Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

RED DARKNESS. It was the first time Teddy had kissed his wife in many weeks, and his ardor was that of a lost lover who had rediscovered paradise, CHAPTER XVIII. CAN THIS BE LOVE? AVALIE did not move until Ted Ban- J ning had gone from sight up the path of royal palms, scattering sand from his wet bathing suit as he went; then he swung his head around and gazed critically at the fish hawks volplaning close to the water. A shadow flitted across him. Javalie start- ed, with a quick flush coloring his dark skin. Being approached stealthily from the rear, surprised, was an experience he had never grown fond of. A girl’s voice, sweet and richly ironical, cried out: ‘Good mornin’, Mr. Pollyanna!” Nanette Banning, in a small white felt hat, a sport coat of lettuce green perllaine, a skirt of white crape pongee, white wool stockings and buckskin shoes, presented a picture so different from the blue-dyed hula- girl of last night that he did not at once rec- ognize her. Her blue eyes were glittering with some excitement, and her skin was glowing. He had not observed last night how lovely her skin really was. Leading the kind of ex- istence she did, Providence must have made some special dispensation in her favor. The midday sun reflected up in a hard glare from the water and sand permitted no doubts to exist. It glowed roseately, really flowerlike, under a kind of pollen, although whether this was the pollen of youth or the pollen of some exclusive Parisian manufacturer it was not so easy to say. Whether his pleasure at beholding her was due to his purely artistic sense of ap- preciation for the completely lovely, or the coming together of other responsive and less easily managed trains of thought, it would have been harder still to say. At all events, the daughter of Theodore P. Banning was so refreshing in her cool sweetness that he caught his breath, then expelled it in the deepest of sighs. 555 She had dropped down lightly in the sand beside him, picked up his hand, and squeezed it. “What are you doing here?” “Tt is a fitting place,” he answered with his benevolent smile, ‘‘ for meditation on the Sabbath.” Nan’s eyes, searching his, still glittering with excitement, now narrowed a little. “ Javalie darling, you’re an old fraud. The wind was blowing the right way, and I heard almost every word of it.” “ Oh,” said Javalie. “Yes,” said Nan. “I was hiding in the bath-house. I followed you down here from the house. I saw the fight. I saw the bap- tizing. I hearkened to thy saccharine words of counsel. It almost sickened me. Really it did! ‘ The little things a woman who loves you is doing all the time to make you happy!’ Oh, Javalie! What do you know about love? Where did you learn about women—in the Encyclopedia Bri- tannica? Listen to me now, Javalie, mio, I am not going to let you talk church-talk to me any longer. You were talking American to Ted. It’s my language, too. I rather liked what you said about disillu- sionment. Up to that point I agreed with almost everything you said, but after that you became positively syrupy! “ T understand, of course, that you adjust your appeal to the intellect of your convert. Dan was telling me about your sermon at the camp. I think he envies you frightful- ly. He’s been trying to rouse them for years. He’s only one of seven ordained ministers over there—and goodness knows how many ordained deacons there are—and not one of them has been able to come within a hundred miles of what you did to-day. ‘If I were narrow I would say you were a hypocrite—after listening to the line you handed Ted. But I know that you’re not —you’re simply adaptable. I wonder what your line will be when you begin working on me?” “T will probably make passionate avow- als of my undying love for you,” Javalie replied gravely. Nan shook her head briskly. “ No, you won’t, Javalie. The unities are complete Gomicbooks;com