Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

ci. rr s ° ‘ : % ‘ = Sab - / t 48 GEOFFREY HOUSEHOLD even get any help from the parish priest. He wasn’t a man of the world, and would hesitate to believe the libellous accusations of a red-hot heretic when Don Luis subscribed heavily to the Church, and had provided the little waif with chaperon and all. As for the police, they would take the same point of view for less charitable reasons. I had no intelligent suggestion to make—except that she should stick to lemonade—so I just sat with her till the place closed down, limiting my whisky to one every half-hour and playing . baby games with pencil and paper. Don Luis did not object. From time to time he would give me a grin and shake his head at me across the room. ‘There was none of his high-class custom about. The next afternoon the steamer arrived. By the time I had collected the electric pump I was waiting for and stowed it safely on a truck and had a meal, it was late and the Estrella was full. Besides the regulars there were a young Argentine off the train— very much the moneyed sefiorito—and a mixed bunch of passen- gers from the boat. Don Luis had already fixed up Rosalinda with the likely young Argentine. She didn’t know the conventions of the place, and she left her escort with a polite little bow and came straight over to my table. He stared murder, half rose, and thought better of it. I was a much bigger man, wearing my working-clothes with the flies buzzing round the sweat stains. He couldn’t quite guess what he was up against. Mark you, I’ve said the Estrella was a high-class joint, and so it was compared to the other places of so- called amusement along the Parana; but to well-dressed young gentlemen, fresh from Buenos Aires, we probably looked a lot of customers who would stand no nonsense. I was getting along splendidly with Rosalinda. Bless her heart, she had forgotten her troubles enough to be flirtatious! Just a matter of eyes, of course. Nothing that she wouldn’t have done in her own home with proud mother looking on benevolently. And then she suddenly jumped up and cried, “ Hilario! ” We were sitting at a little table at the unfashionable end of the Estrella, near the angle of the bar and wall. Hilario’s eyes must have been burning into us while he first watched from the en- trance, and then walked the length of the room. It was the end of a long, desperate journey to his sister, during every hour of which he had imagined himself arriving too late. He did not kiss her or throw his arms round her. He was the kind of stern brother you read about in the Old Testament. I was his first objective. He said to me, “‘ Outside! ” comiclooks.comnn