Argosy, Vol. 111, No. 1 — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

TRACING THE SHADOW. and the place was brighter and more vital in feeling. She moved across the room as quietly as a shadow; she said no word, yet her whole presence spoke. “ Hello, Ziz,” and Wise smiled at her. “Watcha want?”’ “Mr. Rivers,” she replied flashing her black eyes at him. ‘‘ Miss Olive sent me. And she wants the other crystal.” ‘““A new mystery?” and Wise laughed. ““T can’t see through the other crystal! Has it to do with a pair of glasses?”’ “No,” and Rivers took out a pocket- book, from which he extracted some flimsy papers. These proved to be tracings of snow crystals similar to those I had seen him draw while he was still in the hospital. “How lovely!” Zizi exclaimed, as she took the traced patterns. ‘‘ You see,” and she showed them to Wise, ‘“‘ Miss Olive is making lace work—and Mr. Rivers makes her these patterns. Aren’t they exquisite?”’ They were. They were forms of snow crystals, than which there is nothing more beautiful, and Rivers had adapted and com- bined them into a delicate, lacelike pattern, which Olive was to carry with linen threads, or whatever women use to make lace out of. “JT was going to take them round,” Rivers said; “I hope the delay hasn’t bothered Miss Raynor.” ‘“Oh, no,” Zizi assured him, “ but she is impatient to see this new design and couldn’t wait. So I offered to run down here for it. I kngw you were here.” “But I’m just going up to Miss Ray- nor’s.” Rivers spoke as if disappointed. ‘‘ And the patterns are my only excuse for a call! So, if you please, Miss Zizi, Ill take them to the impatient lady, and Ill go at once.” 7 “JT think she’s gone out, Mr. Rivers —she was about to go as I left. telephone you'll likely catch her.” Quite unembarrassed at our knowing smiles, Rivers took up my desk telephone and called Olive’s number. While waiting for the response he picked up a pencil from my pen-tray, and idly. drew a snow crystal on the big desk blotter. Y watched him, for his skill fascinated me. He drew the dainty six-sided figure with the accuracy of a designer. The tiny If you | 133 fronds, all six alike, made a lovely hex- agonal form as it grew beneath his fingers. He was apparently unconscious of what - he was doing, and drew without thinking, for he spoke to us several times while waiting for the desired connection. At last Olive answered him, and he dropped the pencil and talked to her. In a wheedlesome mood, he persuaded her to defer her proposed errand until he could join her, and accompany her. The kindly familiarity with which he carried on the conversation and the jaunty assurance he showed that she would accede to his re- quest proved to us, listeners perforce, that there was good comradeship between them. Rivers hung up the receiver, and turned to me with a boyish smile. “I’m going now,” he said: “ Miss Raynor is waiting for me. I'll see you again, to-night, Brice.” And with a nod of farewell he went off. Zizi sat staring at my desk. The strange child was thinking of some- thing—more, she had made some discovery, or had sensed some new information. She leaned over the desk, her out- stretched hands resting on the big blotter and her black eyes wide with an — expres- sion of surprised fear. ‘““ Look!” she cried; ‘ look!” But her slender finger pointed only to the snow-crystal that Rivers had drawn. It was a graceful figure, not only finished, but a delicate tracery of one of the myriad forms that snow-crystals show. How often I had looked at the lovely things as they rested for a moment on. my dark coat sleeve when I was out in a snow storm. And after seeing Rivers draw them so skil- fully, several times, they had taken on a new interest to me. But what had so moved Zizi I could not imagine. It was as if the little drawing were fraught with some dreadful significance of which I knew nothing. Nor was Pennington Wise any more aware than I of the girl’s meaning. He smiled quizzically, and said: Zizi, girl, what’s hypnotizing you? drawing of Rivers’s?” “Yes,” and Zizi turned her big, black eyes from my face to Wise’s, and gave a queer little sigh. “ Well, That GOMIIGIOO (C©)