Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

now—the time, the place, and me. There’s not a soul near, and—you just sit there. I think ”—eying him judicially—“ that you would make love the way you do everything else, with wonderful abandon under the con- trol of a perfect mechanical technique. Your victim would not realize that she was dealing in counterfeit coin. Good heavens! T never saw such colossal reserve in my life! I wish you’d teach me how. Here I come out wantonly and tell you I dote on you!” He realized that she was determined to finish what she had started so admirably last night—parrying for a weak spot in his armor. “And yet,” he sighed, “ you envy me my technique!” “It is not technique!” Nan cried indig- nantly. “I am simply up-to-date. Mod- ern women don’t wait to be rushed. Didn’t you know that, Javalie? Ah, we’re so hard we positively glitter! Do 1 have to repeat that I have been waiting all my life for a man like you to come along? Look at me! I throw myself at you! I surrender myself without a struggle! Oo-la-la! “T like everything about you but two things—the way you do your hair, and your adaptability. You make me uneasy. You are like mercury. When I think you’re so-and-so, and try to grasp that, you squirt out of my fingers and go trickling off into some new bewildering pattern. You don’t mind my pulling you apart this way, of course?” “No,” Javalie returned soberly. “TI like just hearing you talk. You have a beau- tiful voice. I love the sound of it.” “ Javalie! Stop that this instant! I am serious! ”’ “So am I!” She eyed him sternly. on. Be romantic.” “Very well. Go “This morning,” he said tremulously,’ “ when I looked at the night sky—a min- ute or two ‘before the sun came up—l wondered what it reminded me of. It was your eyes.” “ Javalie,” she stopped him, “I don’t think you’re a darned bit thoughtful. This is one of the most serious moments‘in a woman’s life. You must not trifle that way. The S. P. C. A. will get after you.” ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘“Very well,” he said more softly still. “What chance, what possible shadow of a glimmer of a chance, have I?” “Are you in earnest, Javalie darlin’?” “Only look at me!” Nanette looked at him demurely. ‘“ Are you going to tell me now that a poor, penniless young pilgrim dare not aspire to the hand of a daughter of Theodore Pluvius Banning?” “* Possibly.” “ But, darling,” she said, “ that argu- ment is automatically knocked for a row of Egyptian pyramids! Father won’t let me marry until I am thirty. If I marry before then I am persona non checkbook—unless you have persuaded him to do what you said last night you were going to do, which I know durned well you haven’t. Be of brave heart, dearest—the argument is de- molished.”’ “The obstacle,” Javalie pointed out, “has still to be surmounted.” ‘““Ah! You mean the luxuries to which I have been accustomed.” He nodded. ‘Love doesn’t count at all?” “Tt counts for too much to be needlessly risked.” “Oh, Javalie, are you trying to show me a good time, or are you simply getting more and more rational? Tell me, did you ever have an honest-to-goodness emo- tion?” He looked across the heat waves to the ocean, and over the ocean to the knifelike skyline, where the smudge from a steamer stained the soft blue. “ Look at me!”’’ she commanded. His eyes returned sparklingly to her flushed face. “‘ Javalie, you’re lying to me. You're dying to grab me! You’re just craving to smother me with kisses! Well, at that, I am kind of sweet. And I’m awfully ap- preciative!” Javalie clasped his hands firmly upon one knee and looked back at the smoke. He was vastly uncomfortable. “We'll naturally concede all that,” he said dryly, “We admit we love eaclr other.”’ “Madly.” CoOMmmicoookKkS.GOnn