Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 87: what you’re looking at

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

| RED DARKNESS. “ And that, in the words of the Chinese poet, we have been doomed for each other, like the reflection of the moon on the little lake.” “ Lovely!” “Well,” he said with a tumultuous sigh, “it is a great relief to be assured.” ‘“ Javalie, stop kidding me! I do want to do something that isn’t silly and useless. I am as cynical as Bernard Shaw and as disillusioned as Joseph Conrad, but I’m tired of the pose. I’m tired of being so hard that I glitter. I want some romance. I’m simply starved for love. And I want to do something—like the kind of thing you are doing.” A picture of the satiny gray steel door of Mr. Banning’s private vault flickered, cinemalike, through his mind. “You may not realize it,”” Nan went on sternly, “but I have a frightful temper. I can stand being ignored and having my delicate sensibilities trampled on just so long, and then— Or didn’t you know that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?” “I suspected it,’’ Javalie replied. seems to me I read that in a book.” “All right. Some day you'll be sorry.” He said with a guilty air: “I’m sorry now.” “ Man, aren’t you even going to let me save my face?” “T love you.” “ Why, Javalie!” * And it can’t be.” “There’s some one else!” “ There has never been any one—else.”’ Again, softer than before: “ Why, Java- lie—Javalie, darn you, you’re not letting me save my face at all. And you’re trying not to laugh.” “‘ Shall we let it go at that?” “You're going to give me up, then, with- out a struggle?” He said with surprise: “‘ Without a strug- gle?” “Tn that case,” said Nan demurely, “why struggle?” “ And then?” “Why,” she cried with a joyous laugh, “we'll live happily ever after! Don’t you think we would, Javalie?” v “ec It 557 “IT wonder.” “ Big loves like ours are so rare, Javalie.” “ That’s what I have been told.” She sighed with exasperation. ‘“‘ Up to a certain point you play the game better than it’s written in the book; and then you do that mercury act of yours. Paradox; riddles; mystery. Why are you so reticent, so mysterious? Javalie, who the devil are you, anyway? Your arrival was suspicious- ly timed with the Palm Beach Limited last night. Did you realize that?” “When I have gone,” he replied, “ I will write a letter and tell you everything— what sins I have committed, why I am wearing sackcloth; everything.” “*Uhuh. When are you going, my dear?” ** As soon as I have finished what I have started.” “ Redeeming us wicked Bannings?”’ <4 Yes.” “Well,” she said indulgently, “you can plan to linger longer. Mother is here, and I think she plans to stick around a while.” “Your mother?” “* Didn’t you know I had one? Well, tec/r- nically she’s my mother. She’s Lady Zelda Northam now. She left us when I was ten, and married Lord Northam, the publisher, you know? Yes. She couldn’t stand dad, and she married Lord Northam, who hap- pened—and _ still happens—to be about seven years younger. “T wouldn’t be at all surprised but what that.is why she is here. It’s her first ap- pearance in fourteen years. Oh, I’ve seen her, but very distantly. There’ve been ru- mors in the papers for months—that J- nese dancer—Nahrdanna?”’ Javalie recalled the Sunbeam landadtét under the porte-cochére and the unicorn rampant on a field of glossy black. ‘“T’ve been expecting something like this for some time,’”’ Nan went on. ‘‘ Martied people who’ve had children don’t seem’ to realize how really inescapably they’re bound, do they?” She seemed reconciled to abandoning ‘the other topic—the tilting match. Javalie made no comment on the new one. He sat in silence, examining her white hand spread out on the sand beside it. Well, why shouldn’t it be a beautiful hand? Gomichbooks;com