Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 39: what you’re looking at

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

MISS MYSTERY. , 381 hand, then dropped back a pace. Aimlessly, mechanically, she seemed wandering in the sleety rain. “Td like to know where she’s going first,”” Hildreth thought; ‘ but then a fel- low oughtn’t to let her suffer so—really not any longer than necessary. She’s my sister’s sort—alone in the storm; tired—oh, fright- fully tired! As if she didn’t know it was raining and didn’t care!”’ She was near the river now, past the Loop, and looking into the first window of the small shops and cheap restaurants. Hil- dreth slowed his pace among the slovenly homegoers, trying curiously to glimpse her face. Not since his first look on her dumb trouble which had made keeping the money an impossible idea had he been able to maneuver himself before her without at- tracting notice which he did not yet wish to do. Abruptly she turned into an eating-place. One of those porcelain-lined bathtubish, immaculate cafés, where one gets a ticket at the door and carries one’s own dishes to a ‘table armchair—amazingly clean and joy- less as a plumber’s display window. “Works here?” muttered Hildreth. “ Cashier—perhaps?” . He followed within as the girl accepted a blue ticket from the person at the desk cage. She moved on a pace among the crowding patrons near the service-counters and then gazed about, bewildered. “‘ Doesn’t really know what to do next,” growled the young man. “ Neither would my sister—here. Else she’s still perfectly blanked in her mind about losing the money!” The stranger had put back her rain- sparkling hair, looked at the ticket, then at the servitors attentively, as if debating just what she might spend. The irrelevance of it straek Hildreth with new wonder. “‘ Did she lose it?” he argued. “I was sure of it, but now? Well, little Miss Mystery—I’m going to know!” She seemed to be gathering a decided composure now, looking at the glass com- partments, the bawling waiters, the con- tainers urns in a film of steam from the foods. And suddenly Hildreth knew the girl of the storm was hungry, desper- ately hungry, weak with it all, perhaps— shaken, unnerved and faint, despite the iron hold with which she clung to her courage. But she seemed still uncertain what to do in this place. Whether to ask for what she wanted, or wait and see how the men crowding around the counters were served. Then she turned and looked quietly, doubt- fully into Hildreth’s face. They were calm eyes, very dark gray— not brown, as he had thought. And she still had that nervous little trick of putting . a small gloyed hand to her rain-wet hair and holding it back from a slightly flushed cheek. The fine grace of it all swept Hil- dreth; if she had spoken he could have foretold the exquisite and well-bred modula- tion of her voice: he knew at once she was the sort of girl-who had no doubt of her- self at all, but could not repress her uncer- tainty at being where she was. But she didn’t speak. Merely regarded him gravely, but before she could withdraw her glance he had removed his hat, bowed, and spoken with a composure as grave as her own. . | . ‘ T beg your pardon, but—I followed you in here.” “Yes?” She looked inquiringly, meas- ured him a moment; and then startled the young man into embarrassment by sudden- ly laughing. A real laugh, almost a de- lighted little laugh in her weariness—as if nothing had happened before for ages to make her smile, and it was suddenly a brave and hopeful omen to discover that she could still laugh. ““I—beg your pardon—’ Her eyes laughed again, even as some growing bit- terness steeled her lips—‘ but you see it never happened before to—me.”’ “What?” ‘““A man— following me. Accosting me—” .- “ See here!” he blurted out, but with a - flush to his eyes. ‘‘ I—you—I—followed you some blocks. In the rain—TI was on the same car with you, and—” His hand was upon the black packet in his pocket, and he stopped, suddenly finding himself becom- ing angry at her, at himself, and growling away irrelevantly. “See here! Why did you come in this place?” COMICEDOO© ‘eo S Co mM