Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 23, 1924 — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

re Wes ake Mi 4 : ioe) 134 “What do you mean?” “ The Swiss navy. It may be seaworthy, but there’s nothing to float it on, so you can’t prove it.”” Marion turned and seated herself in front of her companion. ‘ Alicia, dear, your brain is all cluttered up with go- ing to school in the Alps. You can’t sit on the Matterhorn five years without getting a low opinion of skyscrapers, but let me tell you that it’s in the skyscrapers you buy all the tickets for Switzerland and other cultural eminences. In short the American viewpoint may not be Alpine, but it helps you to get there. Now, how are you going to get around the corner where your true knight waits, unless you come to the cor- ner? You haven’t even seen this Rutledge proposition. He may be just the mixed grill you’re looking for.” “1 said Grail, not grill,” corrected Alicia. She had seen the hay wagon disappear in the woods which screened the entrance to the Northover drive, and now dreamily re- garded the vacant roadway, as though she felt that her knight might come galloping down that shimmering ribbon even while she watched. She slowly but decidedly shook her love- ly head. “Tt’s too dreadful!” she cried again. ‘** How can I meet him? How can I look into the man’s face? It’s too obvious! Daddy will give a party, and everybody will know then that he has taken this place for the summer just for the purpose of bring- ing us together.” “Don’t let that worry you,” quoth Mar- ion shrewdly. “ That particular game is played so often over here that houses are built in the country for no other purpose. Anyway, you could never have met him any other way. He’s the real thing, is this little Craig Rutledge. He’s got a studio or something down here, and he only goes up to town to fire the help and reorganize com- panies. You talk about knights and mixed grills, my dear, but you don’t want to get all worked up when a real, genuine, two- fisted, he-man, is sicked onto you. Be- sides, my dear, there is money attached.” “ Marion, how can you!” Alicia spoke with considerable warmth, but her serene and beautiful face never betrayed the depth ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, of her feeling for an instant. She almost reclined into the comfortable arms of the chair she occupied and her sapphire eyes were set dreamily upon a tiny, nondescript car which was scurrying out of the distance down the white ribbon of road. ‘ That is all I hear of this man. His capacity for work, and his money. Are there no more essential things in life? Does happiness consist of nothing more than shrewdness and common sense? ‘The ability to make money?” Marion’s interest, however, had for the moment wandered. The doctor had emerged from the chauffeur’s cottage and entered the shining body of the car. He was close- ly followed by the chauffeur himself, who, radiant with an imbecile happiness, clam- bered into his seat at the wheel. “ Brent is due to give the doctor some thrills,’ observed Marion. ‘“ He can get seventy m. p. h. out of that car, and he’s so anxious to get back to his new liability that he’ll probably only hit the hill tops on the way to and from.” Certainly from the whizz of the wheels, they heard as the great car sped down the drive, Brent seemed determined that Mar- ion’s prophecy should be fulfilled. ‘“Common sense and business efficiency are good enough fetishes for the struggling youth,” remarked Alicia Averill, with a quaint little touch of philosophy, ‘‘ but love and marriage should mean something more than that.” “What for instance?” parried Marion. “Like Lohengrin, I suppose? fairy princes in oyster shell canoes?”’ But Alicia had leaped from her chair, with white face and blue eyes wide open. “Marion!” she cried, and clutched her companion’s arm. “Qh, ring, Marion! Something awful has happened! Ring!” She had seen the little, nondescript car disappear, as the hay wagon had disap- peared, behind the screening woodland. Then the great black car had shot down the driveway like an avenging monster. Like a shining beast it had plunged into those same woods, and vanished. There had followed an audible crash, and like a dummy tossed by a strong arm, the body of a man with a terrible scarlet head had (EO) NOOLKS ANU (F@)