The Argosy, Vol. 90 No. 1 — page 87: what you’re looking at

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

LITTLE BOSS had grounds for his statement that he had been shot at. The desk seemed to indicate that activities had centered around it. Fan was the only one who might throw some light on the matter. . His patience was almost exhausted. Things were getting impossible. What she was up to he could not guess; but he would know or quit. Moore stared off after him, though he could not see in the darkness. “You boob!” he muttered. But he meant the appellation for him- self. He had let Fan get away with the paper. Even while she begged protection from gossip, she had been paving the way to secure possession of it. Now Fleming was rushing toward the cottage where he would be drilled in what he was to do. Ben saw Fan as a conspirator working to keep the owner of the Big Ben in the dark about his own affairs. Scattering rain-drops struck his face. He realized that he was hot and excited. To the south, brilliant as though the wind and rain had rid the atmosphere be- tween it and him of every disguising blem- ish, a great white star shone. The won- der of its presence in the black sky smote him. -He stood still and gazed at it. As if his heart spoke aloud, the name of Fleming’s daughter breathed through him. Between the brightness of the white star in the black sky and the presence of that name in his heart, he traced a likeness. Faculties, perceptions apart and different from any he had known and used before, were working subtly in him. Suddenly, with a giant sweep, like a huge, destructive sword mowing down the finer, frailer lovelinesses blooming in him, his reason came into play. She had consistent- ly deceived him, She had served the other man. Then the great blade fell powerless. Moore’s brain and body vibrated to a com- bined harmony ‘of which the thought of Fan Fleming was the commanding key- note. Was this love? The proclamation rang through him as if a thousand hitherto silent voices of his being waked and sang. The ineffable, fresh cleanness of the rain-washed grasses wafted to his nostrils, OF BIG BEN. 81 The sweet warmth of the damp wind touched his face. He started swiftly across the distance between him and the cottage, moved by the overwhelming need to be near her. Suddenly he paused. Out there, alone, on the big, wind-swept plain, the great white star looking down on him, he thought of Rose Leonard. Rose Leonard loved him. She felt to- ward him as he did toward Fan. With horror at what he had rushed to do, he stood shivering as if a polar wind had cir- cled him. Love! The awful pain of it. He suf- fered as if a spear were digging at his very being. Rose loved him as he loved Fan. Fan loved the man in the dark as he loved her. With swift rebellion, Moore found his heart arrayed against what his mind had Jorg accepted as its standard. Self-mas- tery had been his ideal of achievement. Now it seemed to him the roots of his char- acter were being ruthlessly shaken by a new force that threatened to wreck the structure he had made of himself. __, Fan! Fan! Fan! The wind called out that he wanted her. Fan! Fan! The white star flashed his need of her. The big night grew vastly and darkly empty*be- cause of his lack of her. He railed at himself, called himself a fatuous fool to whimper and ache and de- spair for a girl who loved another man as Fan had given proof of loving. He shifted his mental gears and tried to get back to the pace he made when the idea of marry- ing Rose fitted: well enough with his plans. But it seemed to him that the ambitions he had nourished became thin and flimsy, self-seeking, small, worthless in the light of possibilities he glimpsed when he thought of Fan. God, what he could be and do if he were the channel through which her love poured out into work for the world! Spotless Town rose before him. Her ardor for service waved like a glorious guidon above the fused intensity of his as- pirations. If she loved him, he could— It was a freak of the wind; but it sound- ed like the Jaugh of the man in the dark. oO Comiclboe S CO