Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 61: what you’re looking at

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

> ae a yay ae a A ee eee) Serta) we,” Ka ail — Me aha” Gates ™, 1. 4 Se Ee, I rere aa ree Tee . ‘ me e 7 } 7” P CJ ¥ piss © « ai ¢ DUEL 6r and confident. And I had enough opportunity for seeing him and hearing him and hating him because he almost lived in Ballysaggart once he had met Fran. He’d be over all times of the day and evening on one excuse or another; to see a farm or a cow, or meet a man, or just plain and straight to meet Fran. And they’d go walking together, or dancing wherever there was a dance being held in the neighbour- hood, or he’d be at her mother’s cottage, telling the old woman the story of his life and how much money his father had, until the poor old fool thought that she couldn’t sell him her daughter fast enough. I never spoke to Fran any more. Not because I was too proud, but because I didn’t get the chance, except when he was there too. And even for the sake of speaking to her, I couldn’t bear to have her jeer at me in front of him. So I only watched her from my window, knowing that half the village was watching her also, and wishing her ill. She hadn’t been going with the stranger a month before the women were looking sideways at her figure, and the story started going round that he was married already; that he was engaged to a girl back in Ennis; or that anyway he hadn’t the slightest intention of marrying Fran. And the last story I believed. He wasn’t the kind of man to marry any girl ina hurry. There were too many girls who would give him all he wanted without that. When he did marry it wouldn’t be for red hair and a slim, supple body. It would be for money in the bank. He almost said as much, laughing in old Mr. Clooney’s bar. And because he stood free drinks, there were plenty to laugh with him. In fact, they hardly needed free drinks to make them laugh at that kind of idea. It suited them too well, the idea of Fran being left. It would be a kind of triumph, to see something they were half afraid of thrown down like that. And what the men laughed at the women gloated over. Fran left . . . and not the same way she had been found, either. And they smacked their lips and looked knowing and full of hatred, because Fran was young and beautiful and proud. I think the old women sitting under the guillotine and knitting as the heads fell, must have looked like the Ballysaggart women. As the weeks went by I could feel the tension building; the people watching Fran and the stranger, watching for her to come to harm, for the man to leave her ruined and broken, waiting for the moment to come, like the Spanish people in their bullrings, waiting to see something splendid killed. The moment of truth, they call it. I could think of other names for such a moment, and the people who could be hungry for it. comiclooks.comnn