Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 130: what you’re looking at

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

~~ 636 _ There’s plenty of it right here in the heart of New York. I'l show you it’s right here burning inside.of me! I won’t be a puny, civilized coward! IH settle this thing as if there were no laws!” He lurched into his room and drew out a drawer from his desk so that collars and cuffs and buttons scattered on the floor. He threw the drawer down, dashed out of the room and then down the marble stairs. Judith knew that he had taken a revolver with him. Duane’s first resolution that he must not see Chantry had faltered when he heard his clubmates talking. Then he had made up his mind that he must see Chantry, but that he would not kill him. Now a new resolve had gripped him: there was only one thing to do when a beast attacked the woman a man loved and who loved him. That was to fight—to leap upon the beast —as the cave-man did before Adam—and to kill. He was met by a Japanese servant who ushered him into a sanctuary of velvet quiet. The dim, cool studio apartment was like some Buddhist temple against which the purpose that brought him there would strike a jangling chord. The background for the cave-man had been granite rocks and the roots of primeval oaks.’ Here Ditane found himself in a setting delicate and rich with Afghan carpets, hanging lan- terns of brass and jewels, incense burners of beaten silver. The caressing odor of _ frankincense. bafffed his passion. He pictured for a moment how his wife would come after him—he knew perfectly well she would come. What a shock that scene would be to her—a silken-haired ‘delicate modern woman—that hyper-civil- ized scene Into which he was about to hurl an age-old passion. What fragile stuff that civilization seemed when it conflicted with his primitive hate. Even as he was about to reach into his hip-pocket he brodght his hand away. He himself was a part of that elegant, costly world. Judith was a part of it. The man whom he wanted to kill was a part of it. d “‘T will speak to Chantry,” he said to himself. “I must not do this thing as an animal would do it. I must think first. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. That’s what a man does. This is a com- plex matter: if Judith did not Iove me it would be easily settled in the divorce courts. ‘The divorce triangle is something made clear by custom and law. But the defense of a‘:pure woman—that is a different mat- ter. I’m about to kill Chantry because he has compromised a pure woman. But 1 must be sure of his guilt first. I will talk to him. When Judith comes here we will all talk—and then I shall be assured I am right first before I act.’ When Chantry came in, the two men stared at each other in a tense silence, broken shortly by a polite, modulated ex- change of phrases: ‘“‘ Why, how are you, Duane?” and “So glad to see you!” Duane let slip a conventional sentence _or two, which made his lips tremble. “Sorry to mterrupt your work.” He even shook Chantry’s slender, turpentiny hand. That made things ever so much easier. Duane found himself looking into the art- ist’s bashful gray eyes with considerable placidity. He was able to confess his er- rand in a tone so frank as to suggest a busi- ness transaction. , “T’ve come to see you about that little ‘mishap of last night.” “Oh, yes, yes, yes,” the artist said hur- riedly. ‘So glad you came. I didn’t know whether to call you up about it or not. Damn awkward, the affair was. I am glad you are taking it this way —I mean in such a frank fashion. Some men, you know, would brood about a thing like that. I must say I admire you.” “Thank you.” Duane could not help darting a glance at .Chantry’s pale, moist forehead. - 3 “You see, the trouble came about in this way,” try went on, afraid of a single moment™U! silence. “ If I had taken the road with which I was most .familiar we would have had to cross a bridge which, as I heard at King Craven’s, was broken down, and then of course—” “That part is all very clear,” Duane broke in. He judged by the perspiration which was now trickling down Chantry’s cheek-bones, that the situation was getting too tense. ‘‘ My wife explained it all. But . IE OHIO STATE UGC GDOOk