Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 87: what you’re looking at

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

THE YELLOW EMERALD. Apprehensive at something intangible that her silence had suddenly thrust into the situation, he leaned forward and peered sharply into her face. She was looking at the sidewalk and her cheeks were chalky white. He pressed her arm and began: “ Don’t you think—”’ Then he stopped suddenly. The library girl, without a sound, had slumped down into a little heap at his knees! Lifting her shoulders, he turned her face up to the light, only to have it flop forward again heavily under his clumsy handling. She was breathing, he had seen, but with her eyes closed and completely unconscious. She had fainted. Tarton stood erect and looked about. No one on earth ever had, at one moment, a less definite idea of what he was going to do than he; nor did any one, on the next, ever make up his mind and put his determina- tion into action any more quickly. For two things were approaching: from up the avenue the measured tread of an- other patrolman, who would unquestionably be impressed by the sight of a very pretty girl in white muslin lying in a heap on the: middle of his beat at that hour of the day, with a distracted and equally hatiess and coatless young man standing guard; and from the other direction the staccato rattle of an empty taxi racing garageward. Tarton left his charge on the sidewalk and dashed out into the street. At the semaphore of his arm the machine slowed up and then rattled down to a standstill. “Well?” demanded the driver over the fanfare of his engine. Tarton waved his hand toward the rear. ‘““My—sister ’’—he explained—‘“‘has been taken sick. Coming from a dance. She was faint, and I took her out for a walk. How much to get us home?” The driver, of wrinkled and knowing visage, grinned a leathery smile and ex- pectorated over the hood. “Too bad,” he grunted. “Sisters is li’ble to git that way. I’ve saw ’em before. Where goin’, mister?” A lump popped into Tarton’s throat and strangled him. Where—was he going? With the policeman almost there and the chauf- feur waiting and grinning knowingly, and the girl back there on the sidewalk—at four in the morning? ; . He hesitated, choked, began, stopped, and blurted out an address. At any rate it was two miles up-town. Before that she might be better. ‘“That’s all right,” said the chauffeur in a curiously softened tone that surprised him. “ Better git her in here, if you’re going to, friend. If that cop spots her, it’s good night! Ill drive slow—” A minute later they had carried her in and were off, with the officer, thumbs in his belt, surveying them severely from the gut- ter. True to his word, the chauffeur, after the initial dash out of danger’s zone, had throttled down to a crawl. _ Tarton twisted round to peer at her, tumbled in a heap at his side. She was huddled uncomfortably in a corner, her head on her knees. - At each lurch of the cab she rolled back and forth, as if the next jolt would send her off. Reaching forward he lifted her, and, with his arm around her, drew her head back to his shoulder. It nestled into the hollow of his neck, with strands of her hair tickling his cheek. Carefully he gathered them to- gether and pushed them back so that he could look at her. He wished her eyes had been open—but if they had been, he told himself, she would not have stayed there. There was a delicious, helpless surrender in the inti- macy with which her soft figure lay against his. It was as though, after her terrors and hardships, she had given up—she was de- pending on him. As though she did it glad- ly, willingly, comforted to have his arm about her, holding her against the shocks. He tried to imagine as he gazed into her slightly wan face, with its closed eyes and parted lips, what kind of secret she was carrying about that had made her the helper and the accomplice of this diabolical villain —her father! The thing brought him up with a shock. In the rush it had dropped out of his head. Her—father! It was incredible! In the sweetness and refinement of her face—and he had feasted on it too much those ten days back there at the archeological table to be mistaken— there was nothing of the bestiality, the — (EO AnKCel exeye)