Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

632 that engagement of my own go and taken you to the dinner myself. But you were spending the day with Mrs. King Craven and I thought surely she would see that you got home all right.” ‘Then you’re blaming it on Mrs. King Craven?” the girl retorted. “Yes, that would perhaps be a very good place to put the blame—if she turned you over to a cad like Chantry.” “Well, it wasn’t his fault!” The husband smiled. “I admit it’s hard to blame Chantry. It’s alway$ hard. He is the kind of coward who does things so the blame always. happens to fall somewhere else. He’s been caught in escapades before, and the men at his club despise him because he always sneaks out of it and brushes up his own reputation. Ill never forgive Mrs. King Craven for putting you in his hands.” “‘ She let Chantry. bring me home because he lives in the same block. His studio is right around the corner.” The girl still had her lithe, youthful back turned. She spoke out of the window with a quiet and still timid scorn. ‘‘ It was the natural, sen- sible thing for us to come home together.” “That part’s all right, I admit,’’ Duane said, “‘ but now go on and tell me the rest.” She turned to look at him. Talking had given vent to his passion. He now seemed cool and infinitely more powerful. She could not ignore his firm, handsome mouth, his dark beseeching eyes, the tall, finely groomed figure so close to her and so strong. ‘“‘ What do you mean by ‘ the rest ’?”’ she began firmly, but then seeing his mouth again, she broke into a torrent of explan- ation: ‘‘ We were lost. He asked the way, but there were only a few people on the road and they mixed him up more—he said. We were going—tearing atong=—tor an hour in the opposite direction.” ‘“‘ What ‘else did he tell. your” the hus- band asked. Judith sensed the new tone and it changed her. She spoke slowly. ‘It was cold—chilly cold and damp, so that I was frozen. He noticed it—it was a short while before sunrise and he still didn’t know the best way home, so we stopped at a little house—”’ Tr N «vy Google ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “You stopped?” “It wasn’t like a faruthouse. Although it was lonely and bleak. It was more like a little country place. Chantry said he would ask the way because it was the first house with lights we had seen. We went in so I could get something hot. I had a chill. + When we went in he said that it was a2 road- house and that I should not tell people I had been there at that hour. I became sud- denly panic-stricken. I was afraid Chan- try would take my hand. He kept asking if I felt cold. I must have thought he was going to kiss me, because I ran out, and he came out a moment later with my fur and said they’d told him how to get home. But I’m sorry that that part of it happened because I know Chantry is really a fine-hearted man—” As Duane stared at her she could see that his whole figure had become tense. He finally spoke with exaggerated care. ‘““Do you know, Judith, you are as un- sophisticated as a little baby. Up till this moment I thought—I hoped—that the af- fair really was a mishap, but now the whole thing is clear to me!” “Why, of course it was a mishap,” his wife pouted. ‘‘ You don’t mean to suspect Chantry of deliberately—” Duane interrupted her. ‘ Chantry is a beast. He puts up a fine front in society. He’s a good clubman, and hostesses think he is perfect. But some of us at the club know what he really is; he will get a woman in a situation like that and no matter how pure and helpless she is, he has no pity. He crashes into her life and then explains to the world it was all due to some little un- foreseen accident. The worst of it is, he always gets away with it. But this is one time he is not going to get away with it.” “‘ Gary, I can’t understand a word you're saying!”’ “He knew you were inexperienced and trusting, so he tried that cowardly game of his again on you—my wife! And in the same dirty, cowardly way. He thought he could make it look like an accident, did he? It just happened ‘hat he failed because you are so easily scared. But as it is, he’s put you in a damnable—a disgraceful—light, and he’s going to pay for it.” —s Uriginal Trom og DOO