Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 13, 1925 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

436 in its generic aspect of febrile sophistication in brains that chronically run a mental temperature. Like one who had become wedded to the delusion that the only active people are those with St. Vitus dance, he was feeling marooned here in the enforced quiet of Asheville. That it was scenically one of the world’s wonder places carried no thrill to her soul—if she had a soul. The idea that people of wealth and dis- crimination from her own adored metropolis came here from choice she repudiated in disbelief. If they left a place like that for a place like this, it must be because the poor fish were tubercular and driven by their misfortune into exile. | For the brooding and superb dignity of the ranges that pitched their purple heights against the sky, she had no emotion whatever beyond a realization that she would go to-morrow somewhere into their ruggedness ‘‘on location.’”’ She would go there for the shooting of those few scenes in the picture in which she had a small and inconsequential part. Let sick people come here if they must. It made her sick to come. She devoutly wished she had not come. She might be feverish and distempered in her brain, but her young body was brimming with superb health, and it was as magnificent a young bedy as the brain that inhabited it was trivial. Passing eyes turned for a second glance at her, and she accepted this sniping scru- tiny as a rightful tribute to her beauty, not realizing at all that it was less due to admiration than amusement for the bizarre exaggeration of her street makeup and the challenging indecorousness of her dress. What admiration there was, was purely animal and entirely, if not purely, sensual. Yet for all the sleazy and overdone cheap- ness of her finery, for all the overlying stuc- co gaudiness of painted cheeks and carmine mouth, there was in this girl herself, or would have been if it had been left un- spoiled by artifice, a flaming vividness and a breath-catching beauty. Jock Harrison walked meditatively a half dozen paces behind her until she turned off of Patton Avenue at the post office corner ARGOSY-ALLSTORY ‘\ WEEKLY. into Haywood Street. His eyes held a flickering amusement, and although he had been walking with a deliberate detachment of manner he lengthened his stride a little now and, as he came abreast of her, fell into step at her side. ‘ Heilo, Little Bright-Eyes,” he accosted her with a patronizing mockery. ‘“ This is quite a coincidence—meeting so far from home—isn't it?” The girl did not alter her pace, and as she looked about at her uninvited com- panion there was a cool defiance in her eyes; a defiance of unwelcome tinged with anger. ‘It isn’t any coincidence at all, if you ask me.” she replied inhospitably but quietls. “If you ask me, it’s a case of butting into my affairs and following me without being asked.” The. man smiled. ‘ You didn’t tell me you were leaving town,” he suggested softly. ‘‘ Why should I?” she inquired in a level tone. “‘ What do you think you are—a probation officer? I thought I’d have a little vacation from you down here in this hick burg.” She paused, and demanded with a mounting anger: “ How did you find out Where I'd gone?”’ “Aren't you putting a rather flattering aspect on the matter—-flattering to yourself, I mean?” He smiled again with a pro- prietary self-assurance. ‘Isn’t it likelier that business brought me on a twenty-four hour railroad jump than just the hunger to feast my eyes on your young beauty and my ears on your silver voice?” * Vd get more kick out of thinking you'd Stayed away altogether,” she announced with a prompt repudiation of his suggestion. ‘“ But I know your stuff. I know you Snooped around and found out where I'd gone, and then you trailed along. What I want to know 1s ow you found out.” Harrison’s eyes narrowed into predatory slits, but he kept his voice free of irritation. “If you want to know,” he told her Ironically, ‘you wouldn’t have got this job at all except for me. I told Wolf that you could handle a small part. I recom- mended vou. That’s why the agency sent for you. That’s why vou’re here working in this triple-star, supremely important super-feature.” CO© Cc DOO S CO