Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 2 — page 180: what you’re looking at

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

362 “ Sally!” gasped Thomas. “ I—” ‘Don’t come near me! If you lay one finger on me, Tom Henning, I'll claw your eyes out!” said Mrs. Noble. “ 1’ll scream until every soul in this house is in here! Don’t you move! Don’t—ah!” Fumbling behind her, her fingers had found the door and opened it. With a whisk and a terrible, triumphant laugh, Mrs. Noble was in the corridor and the door had slammed after. her. The ears of Thomas Henning caught the sound of her running feet. They reached the stairway and, in three seconds, their echo died out. That was all. Behind Thomas, the curtains stirred sud- denly. The knight in armor, her helmet in the crook of her .arm, tottered into the living-room. ‘Where is it?” she cried. ‘“ Where’s—what?”’ “The bag- she had—the bag with my clothes!” ‘“She took that with her!”? Thomas sighed. “She didn’t! I saw it—I was looking when you put it on the chair there!” Mary cried hysterically. ~What— Thomas dropped inte his largest chair and groaned; this was largely because his knees, temporarily, refused to support him longer. “ Mary, if you had kept on looking, you’d have seen her remove it from the chair,” he explained, with an exhausted smile. “I —I thought I had you fixed up that time In the knight’s thunderstruck eyes un- derstanding was growing. “ She—did really take it!” she gasped. “She did—really, Mary!” said Thomas. The lips of the unfortunate: knight be- gan to tremble. With a considerable rattle the knight collapsed into a chair of her own. “ Then—then they’re gone! I mean, she took them away altogether!” she faltered. “Yes, but don’t let it worry you, my child,” Thomas managed. ‘“ We're not so much worse off than we were before she came.” “You're not!” Mary quavered. “ But ‘“ Where is it now?. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. I—oh, I thought that time—TI thought that time that it—it was all right! I—” Her eyes closed. Her beautiful face puckered. Two more of the gigantic tears in which Mary seemed to specialize this evening rolled down her cheeks. Thomas forced himself out of the chair and to her side. “There, there, there, Mary!” he said, quite mechanically. ‘“ Den’t start weeping again!” a “ll weep if I want to!” Mary flared. ‘ Don’t you dare tell me not to weep!” “ All right, then, weep if-*” ‘““T wish I’d never seen you! I wish I’d never been born!’ Mary pursued some- what irrelcvantly.. ‘Yes, Mary,” Thomas agreed. ‘““And I wish that armor—I wish the fool that made this armor had—had died before he began it!” the bride stated fur- ther, and with an excess of feeling. “If I ever—ever see the last of this horrible suit!’ ‘You will, very shortly, Mary,’ Thomas fairly purred. The iron hands gripped his own, fran- tically. - > “Tom, if I ever get out of this thing— it’s theeonly thing I want in the whole world, just to get out of this armor! I’d give ten years of my lite just to see the last of this dreadful— _““ Mary, my child, you'll be out of it _ Just as soon as we find something else for you to—” Thomas began—and started up as the sudden whine of the buzzer sounded in the room. “Let me get back there!” Mary hissed. ‘No time now,” Thomas mumbied, and snatched the helmet from her and gently placed it on her head once more! ‘ That’s Sally again, and—I’ve got an_ idea! Wait! Play drunk again! [Ti—” Almost nimbly, the great idea half- formed even now, he stepped to his door. He smiled, too, quite brilliantly. He would whisper to Sally, indicating the supposed male friend in armor; he would. accept the grip and thank her for bringing it, thus accounting for her visit; and she would understand. She— ‘“ Good evening, Mr. Henning!” said one the | SS COlini comicboe