Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 19, 1924 — page 87: what you’re looking at

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

THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. Lucie? Maybe she hadn’t meant to meet him, but had just been kidding; maybe’ she’d given him up and gone? Then all at once it was borne in upon him that water was trickling somewhere near with a little splash as though it were falling over stones, and it seemed as though a tune ran along with it, like someone hum- ming in a low, soft contralto. He rose cautiously and looked to the left, farther along than the gap in the fence through which he had entered. A clump of dogwood trees and thick, flowering shrubbery rose in a slight depres- sion of ground and through the meandering ‘line of bushes that wound from it toward the house he caught glimpses of a path. Keeping parallel with the boundary he -wormed his way in that direction, taking advantage of the screening undergrowth he had derided a moment before. When he reached the clump he forced the shrubbery apart and peered through the interlacing branches. A tiny stream rippled down the incline and cascaded over a miniature water- fall into a stone grotto that formed a quiet ‘pool and ona Jichen-clothed ledge beside it Lucie sat sewing and singing a gay little tune to herself. She was prettier even than he had thought, with her small dark head bent over 5a7 She paused laughing, with a plump cara- mel half-way to her lips. ‘But you are droll! Smoke your cigar- ette, and I shall keep these all to myself! — Unless you wish that I shall call your cousin Nora and share them with her?” There was a malicious little sparkle in the dark eyes and Phil demanded: ‘Have you been talking to her about rer” ‘It takes two to talk, M’sieu. I spoke of you, but Nora finds she has forgotten you, she cannot recall that you exist and it is odd, for she has a long memory! Mon Dieu, it goes back nearly seventy years!” “Holy Cat!” he groaned. ‘‘ How was [ to know how old she was!” “The same way you knew her name, M’sieu,—and mine.” Demurely Lucie slipped the candy into her small mouth and regarded him with polite inquiry. “Tm caught!” he acknowledged laugh- ingly, but his dismay was not all assumed. ‘““ How the devil was he to get out of this? Then a quick inspiration came to him. ‘““T guess I’d better come clean! I would have told you last night only I didn’t want to scare you, but—I followed you from the drugstore!” ‘“ You—followed me?” The mischief was gone from her eyes and she stared stonily. the foaming white needlework and her re&She wasn’t offended, a girl would pick a lips slightly parted as she sang. Phil drew a deep breath and stepped forward. “Good afternoon!” This time his de- bonair bow was not wasted in darkness. “I hardly hoped you'd be around but I took a chance. I’m afraid you won’t like these, but they’re the best in the village.” He laid his offerings before her and she reached out for them with a little’ cry of delight, the lace slipping from her knees to the ground. “Oh, how lovelee—Philip!” she ex- claimed. ‘“ Me, I did not think to see you, one so often forgets next day the promises of the moment, but now you shall sit here and have some of your own chocolates!” “1d rather smoke—and look at you!” Phil seated himself on the soft, mossy turf with his back against a dogwood tree. “Vou’re mighty easy to look at, Lucie; did anybody ever tell you that before?”’ fellow up the way she had him? What was the matter- with her? She wasn’t scared? “But how did you know our names, mine and Nora’s?” Lord, he hadn’t thought of that! ‘““T asked!” he asserted glibly. ‘“ There was a man standing at the counter beside me in chauffeur’s livery and when he saw me watching you go out he told me your name and that you were a maid here at the Manor. I asked him if you were the housemaid, for right there I made up my mind I was going to meet you if f could, and he said no, that the housemaid at Monckton’s was Nora Delaney. I thought Nora ’d be young too, so I was safe in telling you I was a cousin of hers and I never believed you’d be mean enough to ask her about me!” He contrived an injuredly reproachful tone, but Lucie did not smile. eComnicloolkks com