Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 127: what you’re looking at

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

a 156 ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “What about those girls in the PAGEUTES you showed me?” _ “© Those girls? Pshaw! Chance acquaint- -ances. .I met them at various places—at parties and so on. Crazy about pictures. I just took them as a joke.” ‘ Then why do you keep them?” “Oh, all men keep little mementos like that.” “Well, to look at, for one thing. They sort of remind one of familiar scenes.” “And faces, I presume.” “Look here, Eve,” he. protested; ‘“ that isn’t fair! Their isn’t a girl in the bunch that I’d go out of my way to speak to. I’m not to blame because they happened to be in the. pictures!” } Eve believed him. She knew earnestness when she saw it. And now that she knew Warren wasn’t in love with any of the girls, she felt her jealousy had been unwarranted. She gave Warren,,a smile that placed him within reach of her again. For a féw min- ‘utes he had felt like a swimmer drifting out to sea. - Warren had forgotten his professional gravity. His color was again high; he was - frankly now nothing more than a mere ad- mirer. And yet there was guile in his heart. Channing had commissioned him to dis-— cover Eve’s attitude toward going East to ‘inherit a fortune. “Don’t tell her about them two chromos bein’ at the Circle B with Bassett,” Chan- ning had said. “ That would stampede her, an’ she’d go. ‘You sort of go at her in a roundabout way, not mentionin’ anything you know. ‘Then, if she’s stuck on the idea, we'll have to let her go, I reckon.” ° Warren began’ obliquely. “ Doesn’t this country ever get monoto- nous to you, Eve?” he asked. ‘‘ Well:’”—she hesitated—“ it does, some- times. But it never did while mother was alive. But’ lately ’—-a shadow crossed her eyes—‘“I get terribly lonesome. He ’— Warren knew she meant Bassett—‘‘is a beast. I hate him! I—I have enjoyed being here. But I suppose J shall have to go back. There isn’t any other place for me to go.” _ prevail ‘upon her to go there. wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted her to Warren felt he had started wrong. Speak- ing to her of the East in her.present frame of mind would be equivalent to trying to And that say that she didn’t want to go—just now, at least. Later on, after Green and the deputy had given up, he hoped she would decide to go. So he felt his presentation of the attractiveness of the East must lack enthusiasm. . _ 7 “Well,” he said, “ the East gets monoto- nous, too. That’s why I came,here. One gets tired of the noise and the tumult of _ Cities.” “T never would!” _“T think you would. There’s too much rivalry in the East; too much competition. People are getting soulless.” “They couldn’t be much worse than him.” Again Warren knew she was refer- ring to Bassett. ° — “Well, Bassett is a bad: one, for ¢ a fact. But there are just as bad in the Kast, and more of them. Why, it’s got so that a man can hardly walk the streets at night without being sandbagged!”’ “ What is ‘ being sandbagged’?” “Why, being hit on the head with some- thing. Getting one’s skull broken.” “They kill them here,” said Eve, un- smiling. “Yes, so they do—sometimes. But more people are killed in traffic accidents in New York alone than are shot out here. Im- agine having to risk.a broken neck each time ‘you cross a street!” » ‘There isn’t a street out here, and yet I néar broke my neck the-other night.” “Yes, so you did.” ° “Td tisk my neck crossing a street in New York or any other city just to look at. the pretty things in the store windows,” said Eve. She looked at him curiously, a strange wistfulness in her eyes. _ “Y wonder if you know how I long for. pretty things,” she added. She contemplat- ed Warren gravely. “I used to have pretty things,” she said. ‘“ I’ve been on the streets you talk about; I’ve been in the stores, the theaters, the hotels. very young, but I remember. “Why, I can’t get those things out of COMNMUC It was when I wo” DOOLK a ——— seh eite Sow ae t