Argosy All-Story Weekly — 'The Metal Monster' — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

BEWARE OF your side every day for months—”’ .Thomas began guardedly. “ Put it-in still another way, then!”’ Mrs. Noble suggested, and it was plain that pa- tience was slipping fast. ‘“ Did they just snatch this opportunity and go to the ball together?” , “ Hardly that, I should say. Peter told me he wasn’t going.” “He told me the same thing, Tom. Then if—if it isn’t that,” Sally went on, and choked a little, ‘‘ have they gone—for good?” “No!” said Thomas. Mrs. Noble started. “T think you’re lying to me!” she said flatteringly: ‘‘ Will you tell.me any more about them or will you not?” “TIT cannot!” “Then I can learn for myself!” blazed from Mrs. Noble, as_a surge of fiery color came to her face and the forced self-control departed all in twinkling. ‘ Do you hear? I can learn for myself! “And Ill go to the bottom of it! I don’t care now who suffers. I’ll go to the bottom of it!” She fairly whizzed about. She fairly shot through the door, slamming it after her. Thomas Henning, gazing after her, blinked and ran his fingers through hair that covered a distinct ache. Yet the blank, helpless feeling persisted for a moment only. Sally was gone now. Whither? Thomas made for his faithful keyhole and glued a tired eye over the orifice. Sally, apparently, had returned to her own apartment. The door stood open some two inches. Thomas straightened up. Were it better to go over there and try to calm her—or were it better to let nature take its course and trust to a few solitary minutes and a good crying spell to restore some of Sally’s reason? | Not, to be sure, that Sally had no cause for wrath. It is a calm wife, indeed, who can find the raiment of another woman in ° her husband’s closet without raising some slight question as to its presence. the door across the hall slammed violently. French heels went down the corridor. Thomas, gazing from the merest crack in Still— | THE BRIDE. . 143 his opening door, caught the whisk of Sal- ly’s blue gown, disappearing down the stairway. Well, he would do no soothing for the present, would he. Thomas smiled rueful- ly for a second or so; and then started anc turned with a sharply hissed: “Mary! Don’t cry like that!” A storm of sobbing answered him. He hurried to the curtains and through them. The infernal helmet was off again, and its wearer wept unrestrainedly—awfully, un- controllably, as a heart-broken little child might weep. “Mary!” Thomas began. “Tf you—”’ ‘Don’t come near me!: Don’t touch me! It’s your fault!”’.Mary gasped. “What is—now?”’ ‘The things they say about me! The things fhey all think about me!’ Mary moaned. “ I—I’ve never done anything in all my life to merit one—one word of all they say and think about me!”’ “They don’t really think them,” Thomas said quickly. ‘ They’re excited, you know. Sally—Buill—they don’t mean any of all that.” “They do!” Mary corrected. is she now?” ‘““ She just left the house.” “Why didn’t you get it away from her?’ “ Get what?” ‘“ My coat!” “TI tried, Mary,” Thomas said simply. “T really tried and—?”’ ‘And if she’s gone, why are you stand- ing there now?” Mary stormed. “If you were half a man, you’d get into that flat and get my clothes! You would! You’d get them if you had to break down the “6 Where door! You—” “Mary, if. you'll stop that crying, [ll get them! I will! I swear it! I'll get them if I have to send for dynamite and blow out the wall! Will you stay here while I go?” “Tf you—” “T will!” stated Thomas, and a preju- diced person might have said that he snarled the words. And, what was of more importance, he would!- This Thomas informed himself as he ripped open his door and stepped into COUMIUC AOO!K (COUNT