The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

774 thing!” she cried indignantly, and with the fire of her smoldering eyes suddenly flaming. The words throbbed through him like drops of molten metal in his blood. With the finer sense which women of her complex and undeveloped nature often possess, she had known him for her mate. She had come to him for help. As if some infinitely delicate mech- anism within him had been reached and set to work for the first time, he looked seeingly into the dusky fire of her eyes, into her very heart. “Tm sorry. I don’t know how to advise you,” he said finally, making himself suppress the impulses that were at work in him. He saw her pale throat tremble. Tears quenched the light in her eyes. “’That—helps some!” she said, smi- ling timidly, but with a radiance no other man had seen in her beautiful face. “T don’t see how,” Stratton said, knowing that he must keep talking, and talking nonsense in consequence. “Neither do I! I feel how. There isn’t any one to whom I can talk. Ted’s your friend. It does me good to—to rest my own mind of the burden by shifting it to some one who—who—’”’ Her words dwindled. They ended in short gasps. Stratton was so near her, looking straight down into her eyes. He did a strange thing, one of the unexpected, inexcusable things to which none of us ever get used, but which are the real things, after all, the things that count. He took her hands and asked her if that were the only reason she had come to him. And Bess saw the danger which he for the moment*forgot. She displayed that miraculous woman-power which saves more people than the world ever knows and answered lightly when her whole nature stormed to rush to him. “It makes me so nervous; and I don’t dare tell any one at home why I feel so upset, so I thought perhaps you might prescribe.” THE ARGOSY. Dr. Stratton was a student; but he had never learned how to understand women. He felt the shove with which she sent him back to the safe ground of the commonplace; and he took it for a sign that her interest in him was not of a kind with his in her. But the real significance of the in- terest they felt in each other was its meaning to Ted Radford. They, his friend and his sweetheart, had agreed to protect him; but the safety they in- tended was being threatened by their feeling for each other. Stratton was true blue; but he was a man. Love came to him with the same intensity that characterized him in other things. Bess was a girl who had been trained to make the most of her charms, and now all the impulses of a strong nature were uniting with the trained charms to wrest from the unpromising conditions the happiness she craved. So, without either of them knowing the depth and the swiftness of the cur- rent that was bearing them along, each was fighting love with a different weapon. Stratton’s was his fidelity to the duties of friendship. Bess’s was the ambition which had become almost second nature. And Ted Radford was indebted for his freedom from the sus- picion that could be centered on him tc this man and woman. “We're all busy taking care of Ted!” Bess sobbed, unable to control herself longer. ‘‘ You —and I —and Mr. Barrington. I’m sure he suspects: but he wouldn’t have his suspicion be- come known for the sake of his wife. ‘And Ted—he just goes on enjoying himself! It—it ain’t fair!” Stratton started toward her with open arms. She swayed a moment, then braced herself against her own longings. His arms sank to his side with hands clenched, and Bess moved swiftly and silently out of the office. Natalie le Fevre came back from her talk with Sykes. She stood on the EO PMICGL OOO KS K- £2... —— —_——— Eo)