"Oh Pen, I hate skulking!"
"I love it!" said Pen. "If I know I'm in the right. It's an adventure!"
They came to the tree where they had left the grass bag hanging.
"Well..." began Pen.
Don swung her around inside his arm. "Oh my Pen, how can I let you go to-night?" he groaned.
"Ah, don't kiss me any more," she pleaded. "I don't want to be drowned again. I want to know I'm loving you."
"But I must before I lose you!"
She laid restraining hands on his arms. "Listen, dear," she murmured. "There's something I want to tell you. From the very bottom of my heart it comes. I love you so much you can make me your slave if you want. But you should have pity on me. You should help me to keep myself separate. For both our sakes. If sometimes I seem perverse and tricksy to you it is only because of the desperate need I have to keep something of myself back. If I become swallowed up in you as most women do in their men you'll tire of me. I'll lose my flavor for you. Let me give myself to you a mouthful at a time. Don't swallow me whole!"
He but dimly understood her. "I'll try!" he said between a laugh and a groan. "You funny darling child! ... But how can I keep from kissing you?"
"I don't want you always to keep from it," Pen said.
On Tuesday morning Pen, dressed for town, was breakfasting with her father in the high-ceilinged, shabby dining-room.
The elder Pendleton pushed his plate from him and with an ostentatiously careless air, took a packet of crisp bills from his breast pocket and commenced to count them. It was hard to get any change out of Pen, but this time she laid down her fork and frankly stared.
"Where did you get it?" she demanded.
Pendleton exulted in the effect he was creating. He had rehearsed an answer to the inevitable question. "I didn't steal it, my dear."
Pen refused to be diverted. "Where did you get it?"
"I sold some lots."
"To Mr. Riever?"
"None other."
"Oh, how could you?" she cried involuntarily.
"And why not, I should like to know?" he demanded, up in arms immediately. Clearly his conscience was bad, though he appeared to have reason on his side.
Pen was helplessly silent.
"I consider it an excellent stroke of business every way," Pendleton went on, puffing a little. "It secures his interest in the railway."
"He has no interest in the railway."
"Then why should he buy the lots?"
"He's buying you."
Pendleton gave the bills a flirt. "Well, I didn't sell myself too cheap," he said with maddening complacency.
Pen fumed in silence.
Pendleton began to count off some of the bills. "I want you to take some of this," he said.
"What for?" said Pen.
"To replenish your wardrobe."
"Not a cent!" said Pen indignantly. Reflecting that she was betraying too much heat she added: "I have plenty of clothes for down here."
"Your summer dresses that you make yourself are very pretty, very pretty," said Pendleton mollifyingly. "But I'm sure you must be in want of the expensive little appurtenances of a lady's wardrobe; shoes, silk stocking, hats, parasols."
"What would I be doing with a parasol at Broome's Point?" demanded Pen with a snort of scorn.
"A smart yachting suit would be nice," he said suggestively.
But Pen looked at him so dangerously he made haste to add: "But of course you know best. You know best!"
"Put the money up," said Pen brusquely.
"But my dear...!"
"I refuse to dress myself at Mr. Riever's expense. The idea is revolting."
"You will have to have money in town to-day."
"I have a little. Enough to buy a pair of white shoes, and materials to retrim my last summer's hat. That will have to do."
"I don't see why you have to go against your obvious interests," he complained.
Pen looked at him levelly. "Let's be frank with each other, Dad. If you have any notion of Mr. Riever and I making a match of it, I beg that you will put it out of your head. The idea is preposterous!"
It made him writhe to have his secret wish dragged out into the crude light like this, nevertheless he was bound to fight for it still. "Why is it preposterous?" he demanded bridling. "He wouldn't be stooping to you?"
"Perhaps I consider that I'd be stooping!" said Pen with her chin up.
He ignored it. "It's only an accident that we are poor. Remember your grandfather had his place at Newport when his grandfather was still swinging a pick!"
"That's only an accident, too," said Pen. "You miss the point. The question is not altogether whether he wants me, but whether I want him."
Pendleton refused to take her seriously. "Oh, the fatal Broome pride!" he murmured.
"He's a divorced man," said Pen wickedly. Her father held strong views on the subject.
"We must not judge," said Pendleton blandly. "Circumstances alter cases. He may have been more sinned against than sinning."
Pen smiled wryly. She did not particularly blame her father. It was at poor human nature that she was smiling.
Encouraged by her silence he went on loftily: "Pride is an excellent thing in its way. But it becomes suicidal when you allow it to blind you to..."
Pen bluntly interrupted him. "I wouldn't marry Mr. Riever if he was the last man on earth!"
She saw, however, that Pendleton was entirely unconvinced.
Presently she said: "I suppose it is useless to ask you to return that money?"
By the way his hand closed over it, by the look of irresponsible cupidity that appeared in his eyes, she saw that it was indeed useless.
"Then it ought to be used for necessary repairs to the place," she went on. "If we're going to continue to live here, the house must be painted, the roof and the porches mended. Modern implements ought to be got for the farm."
"I will consider all that," he said loftily.
"Better let me take it to town and deposit it," said Pen. "It will make too much talk if you put it in the Island bank."
He shook his head obstinately. "It will improve our credit locally."
Pen shrugged and let the matter drop. After all she was not implicated. Men must be left to follow their own blind ways, she told herself.
At eight o'clock an automobile was at the door. Riever's people having had the worst places in the road mended at his expense, had brought this car down the Neck for his use around the Point. The millionaire resented having to put foot to the common earth any more than he could help—or perhaps it would be more correct to say that his entourage resented it. Riever, like all potentates, was largely at the mercy of his entourage. TheAlexandrawas crowded with "friends," secretaries, servants and persons of undefined status whose sole object in life lay in maintaining Riever's unacknowledged state. Three-quarters of Pen was appalled at the existence of such a situation in a democratic country, but the remaining quarter of her found it undeniably pleasant to share in his state. Everything about Riever moved with so beautiful a precision.
For instance, she was carried down to the old steamboat wharf which had likewise been mended. As the automobile turned in front of the wharf the speed-boat drew alongside with Riever in it. They leaped to the Island. As they stepped out of the boat, before them was the car to take them to town, waiting with its engine running. Pen saw at once that it was not one of the ordinary cars used to carry Riever's mail back and forth, but a vehicle imported for this occasion. It was an astonishing car of foreign make, long and rakish in line with an immense aluminum engine hood and a smart, diminutive, coupé body. In other words, it represented unimagined power to carry around two little plutocrats; the last word in luxury. The driver rode outside.
It was Pen's first ride in a superlative car. The springs were miraculous. One was but faintly aware of wheels underneath. The body swam along as smoothly as a high-bred lady, only curtseying slowly now and then to a rut. It was all slightly unreal to Pen. As they whirled through the village she had glimpses of the staring Islanders. It was only too clear what they were thinking. When an Island boy and his girl went to town together they generally came home married.
It was a clear fresh morning. Pen would have loved to lean back in her cushioned corner and give herself up to the flying panorama through the windows. Nowadays there are few roads left like that in our country. The prospect was of a peaceful, long-settled land with nothing garish nor raw; not a factory, not a railway, not a rich man's house the whole way. But miles of pine woods, many old farms, a sleepy village now and then, glimpses of the blue Bay from high land; a rickety bridge over an arm of the Bay.
Unfortunately Riever wanted to talk. It wore Pen out to talk to him because she couldn't be frank. Real frankness was unknown to Riever, though he could be amusing. His eyes never lost their watchfulness, nor his lips their superficial smile. This morning he was not amusing. For several days Pen had been aware that his temper was suffering as a result of the continued non-success of his efforts to run down Counsell. To Pen's secret dismay he commenced to talk about it now, watching her keenly meanwhile.
"What do you think of the situation at the Point?" he asked.
"How do you mean?" asked Pen.
"Counsell appears to have given us the slip."
Pen said to herself: "I must be bold. Half measures will never deceive him." She said to him calmly: "I hope he has."
Riever bit his lip. "I wish I knew what it was about murder that appeals to women's imaginations," he sneered.
"About murder, nothing," said Pen coolly. "Not to this woman. But no true woman could help sympathizing with a man hunted by a pack."
"Even if he was guilty of a foul crime?"
Pen was not to be betrayed into declaring her belief in Don's innocence. "Even if he was guilty," she said.
"Then what about justice?"
"Well, I fancy a woman's idea of justice differs from a man's. To kill for killing gets us nowhere."
"I thought you thought him innocent," said Riever subtly.
"How can one tell?" said Pen. "The newspapers are so contradictory."
"I haven't noticed it," said Riever. "If there's any evidence in his favor it hasn't been brought to my attention."
Pen seeing that she had made a slip, adroitly shifted to new ground. "That's just it," she said. "The newspapers are so clearly prejudiced, you can't help but feel there is another side to the story."
"How do you suppose he made his getaway?" asked Riever, still watching her. "Every yard of the shore has been searched, every native questioned."
"Perhaps he paddled across the Bay," said Pen. "There are convenient railways over on the Eastern shore."
"But we had our men there next day," said Riever. "And the canoe was not found. No, somebody must be hiding him."
"Very likely," said Pen calmly.
"But there's the reward I offered," said Riever, "You'd think that would be tempting."
"Oh, money isn't everything to everybody," said Pen.
"You think maybe some maiden's fancy has been caught by his good looks?" he sneered.
Pen looked at him full. "Oh, do you think he's good-looking?" she said with a little air of surprise.
He was disconcerted. "I? No! But I'm no judge. At college they seemed to think him a regular Phoebus Apollo, men and women alike."
Pen carried the war straight into the enemy's camp. "You did not like him at college, did you?"
"He was nothing to me one way or another," Riever said carelessly. "I scarcely ever saw him."
"Liar!" thought Pen. She said: "I cannot quite understand your attitude. Why are you so bent on running him down. Is there an old score to settle between you two?"
In the smooth mask of his face, Riever's eyes were not pleasant to see. "No indeed!" he said with a laugh. "I am not revengeful. But Dongan was my friend. I owe it to his memory."
"I appreciate that," said Pen. "Still, to give up everything, and come down here yourself. To direct the hunt personally."
"Delehanty is in charge, not I," said Riever quickly.
Pen let it go at that.
"As for coming down here," Riever went on, "that was just an impulse. I was so shocked at the moment I could think of nothing else ... Perhaps it was foolish. But I can't say I regret it because it has made me acquainted with you."
"You are polite," said Pen.
"It's more than that," said Riever.
After awhile he said: "You will not be sorry to see us go, I'm afraid."
A glad cry leaped to Pen's lips: "You are going!" But she caught it in time. "I sha'n't be sorry to see the last of Delehanty and his crew," she said calmly.
"And the rest of us?" he asked.
"It will be hard to settle down into the old dull routine when you are gone," she said.
"I might come back," he suggested.
"Father and I would always be happy to see you," said Pen demurely.
Meanwhile they were bowling along the State road at better than forty miles an hour, but so smoothly that Pen had no sense of great speed except when she happened to catch a glimpse of some astonished face in the road. They had a highly accomplished chauffeur at the wheel and the heavy car held her speed up hill and down as steadily as a locomotive. Woods, fields and villages were thrust behind them with no sense of effort.
As they drew near to Baltimore Pen began to wonder how she was going to get rid of Riever. He saved her the trouble by saying:
"I have to go to the Hotel Bellevue for a conference. You'll keep the car of course, and load your purchases right into it. So much easier."
Pen would have liked to dispense with the car as well as its owner, but did not see how that was to be accomplished plausibly. At any rate she reflected, the chauffeur could not follow her into the stores. The main thing was to be rid of Riever. But she rejoiced too soon.
He said: "I'm taking it for granted you'll lunch with me at the Bellevue. We breakfasted so early I ordered lunch for twelve-thirty."
This was awkward. "Oh, I'm sorry!" said Pen. "It will be impossible!"
This man was not accustomed to be denied what he wanted. The spoiled child leaped out of his eyes. "Why?" he demanded.
"So much to do," said Pen. "This is a leisurely town. Not like New York. It takes time to be waited on."
"But you've all afternoon."
Pen was patient, for her. "But think how seldom I get to town. I couldn't take an hour or two off for lunch."
"Make it half an hour then."
"Please excuse me to-day."
"Oh, very well," he said in a pet. "Pick me up at the Bellevue whenever you are through."
He was in a hateful temper the rest of the way. When he thought Pen was not looking at him his eyes darted sidelong jealous glances at her. Clearly his suspicions were aroused, and he was meditating some sort of mischief. It was a catastrophe. But Pen did not see how she could have acted differently.
It lacked a few minutes of eleven when they reached town. Riever got out at the hotel, and Pen went on about her shopping with an anxious breast. What would he do?
She was soon informed on that score. As she proceeded from store to store she kept her eyes open about her and became aware finally of a man that turned up wherever she went. He was a burly individual dressed in clothes too warm for the season, and with an expression of unconsciousness that was almost comical in its transparency. Spy was writ large on him. Pen was a little appalled by this evidence of her adversary's power. He seemed to be able to summon his creatures out of the air. She reflected, however, that it would be easy enough for Riever to send a man from his mail car down to the shopping district to pick up the imported car. There was no other car like it.
Pen made several attempts to lose her follower in the crowds, but without avail. He looked like a fool, nevertheless he always succeeded in nosing her out like a too faithful dog.
At noon she took up her stand in front of the notion counter at Douglas' with a fast beating heart. Outside the store she had sought to dismiss her car, saying she didn't know how long she'd be, but the chauffeur had replied that he'd find a place to park nearby and would wait as long as she liked. Had he too, been instructed not to lose her? Inside the store she would not look, but she was horribly conscious that the burly spy was somewhere across the aisle pretending to examine silver articles. Watched or not, she had to keep her appointment. If the girl obeyed instructions all might yet be well. There would be nothing strange in her meeting a girl friend in a department store. But probably she would not look like a friend. Nevertheless, Pen's great fear was that the girl would not come at all. She already felt flat and despairing in prospect.
Pen could not appear to be looking for anybody. With sightless eyes she inspected the stock of notions. There were scores of little baskets displaying pins, hair-pins, fasteners, tapes, hair-nets, all the multitudinous contrivances with which women keep themselves together. It is the busiest counter in a department store. Perspiring women elbowed her on either hand. An exasperated voice said at her shoulder:
"If you don't want anything here would you kindly give me room!"
Pen in a daze, gave way. She was saying to herself: "She'll never come. It was a wild scheme. You're only wasting your time..."
Suddenly a high-pitched, metallic voice beside her exclaimed: "Well of all people! How are you?"
Pen jumped as if the last thing in the world she expected was to be addressed. Half a dozen women turned around. Pen seemed to shrivel under their glances. But the other girl carried it off well. She was talking continually. Pen got a flash of hard, bright black eyes and a brilliant tight smile. It disconcerted her. She had expected—well, some sort of a pathetic figure. These eyes expressed an infinite sophistication that seemed to open a gulf between them.
Pen's lapse was but momentary. Out of the tail of her eye she saw a burly figure pushing across the aisle, and the emergency nerved her. With an automatic reflection of the other girl's manner she began to talk back:
"Upon my word! Who would ever have expected to find you here?" Without changing her smile she murmured: "We're watched. He's coming this way."
The other girl's eyes signaled: "I get you!" She said loudly: "How are all the folks?"
"Much the same as usual," said Pen.
The burly one brushed by, his foolish eyes looking everywhere but at them, his mouth pursed up to whistle.
When he had gone by, "Bull," murmured the black-eyed girl out of the corner of her mouth. "Pure-bred Jersey." Aloud she said vivaciously: "You must tell me all about everybody. Let's get out of this jam."
With a hand under Pen's elbow, she steered her out of the press. Crossing the aisle they struck into a side aisle, deserted for the moment. Here the man could not come close enough to overhear their talk without giving himself away completely. They could see him loitering in the main aisle uncertain what to do.
The black-eyed girl was an admirable actress. She kept up a running fire of questions: "How's Alfred? And the old man? And Maud?"
Pen's spirits rose fast. It was dangerous, and it was fun. A genuine smile replaced the mechanical one. She rattled off some kind of answers, surprised at her own talkativeness.
Meanwhile the two were busily sizing each other up, Pen with shy glances, the other with bold ones. Pen saw a little creature beautifully formed, very pretty too, with petulant, doll-like features, frankly made up. The idea of the make-up was not to imitate nature, but to create an original artistic effect. She was smartly dressed in a plain black silk slip confined by a beaded girdle, impudent little close-fitting hat, expensive gray slippers and stockings. She carried an exotic little beaded bag. She might have been anything or anybody almost. It is so hard to tell nowadays. Certainly she did not smack of the underworld as Pen imagined it. But Pen perhaps was not much of a judge.
On the other hand Pen could hardly have been mistaken for anything but what she was. There was a sort of open reticence in her, a high unaffectedness that was in her blood and could not be hidden nor imitated. With all her assurance the other girl resented it a little. Without changing her outward manner the black-eyed one said:
"Well, what's the big idea, Miss? I don't get you at all. Are you a bull yourself?"
"No," said Pen smiling.
"Well, if you are you're a new type. I know them all. What did you get me down among the orioles for? Nobody down here's got anything on me."
"I want to be your friend," said Pen.
The other pulled down the corners of her lips mockingly. "Old stuff, sister. Every con game that ever was started opened with that. Can the friendship. You'll need it next winter. Give it to me straight. What's the likes of you doing, trailed by a bull?"
"It's a long story," said Pen.
"Well, my hearing's good."
"If we could get away somewhere..."
"Nothing doing! No back alley work for me. This is a first-rate public situation. Speak your piece."
"I can't," said Pen helplessly. "There must be confidence between us first. You must know that it is something I can't blurt out in a place like this."
The black eyes bored her through and through. Curiosity and suspicion were struggling there. It was strongly in Pen's favor, however, that she was being tracked by a detective. "Do you live in this town?" the girl demanded.
"No," said Pen. "I came here to meet you."
"Are you alone?"
"Yes."
"Well, I warn you I'm not. If anything is to be tried on, I got a husky friend with me."
Pen, glancing around guardedly, had no great difficulty in picking him out—a nonchalant youth leaning against a bargain counter. He was very well dressed in sporting style, topped with an exaggerated flat tweed cap. His cheeks were as smooth and pink as a girl's, but the glance of his blue eyes was disillusioned.
"He may look like a boy soprano," said the girl dryly, "but I assure you he sings double-bass. It's Babe Riordan, side partner of Spike's, that I brought along. Understand wherever I go the Babe goes too."
"All right," said Pen.
"Well, what do you propose?"
"I'd rather leave it to you," said Pen.
Another lightning-like dart of the black eyes. "Oh! ... Well, a room in a hotel's the safest place. The leading hotel here is the Bellevue...."
"Oh, not there," said Pen.
"Why not?"
"He ... the man I want to tell you about is there."
The girl took three steps to a counter where there was a salesgirl disengaged. "What's the biggest hotel here next to the Bellevue?" she asked.
"The Southland."
"Thanks." She returned to Pen. "Make it the Southland in half an hour."
"But the detective," said Pen.
"Pooh! He's just out of the egg," said the other with a scornful glance. "He's still got his pin feathers stickin' on him. Listen. Babe and I will take a room at the hotel and you come call on us, see? That bird couldn't follow you up, could he?"
"No, but he might hear me ask for you at the desk."
"Don't ask. Listen. Babe will be watching for you in the lobby. He'll be sitting there reading a paper. You stroll by him and if everything's all right he'll flash a card under the paper with the room number on it, see? You get the number in your head and come right up in the elevator."
Pen could not but admire the little creature's strategy.
But the black eyes narrowed suspiciously again. "Mind, if there's any funny work about this, if there's anybody near you when you come by Babe you don't get the room number, see?"
Pen nodded.
The little one lifted her voice blithely: "Well ta-ta old girl. Call me up some time and we'll make a date to lunch together. Remember me to the folks."
She pattered coolly away in the direction of the burly loiterer, and brushed by him with a negligent hand at her black hair. Pen turned in the other direction. The detective came after her. As she was about to leave the store she saw her opportunity. An elevator door was just about to close. She slipped inside and was carried aloft. Her follower had to wait for the next car. She crossed the building on an upper floor, came down in a car on the other side, and got out of the store without seeing the man again.
Half an hour later she was knocking at the door of room 1214 in the Southland Hotel. The door was opened by one who remained invisible. Pen walked in with her heart in her mouth. Blanche was behind the door. She was smoking a cigarette. At the sight of Pen's face she laughed.
"For Mike's sake don't look so scared, sister. Any bull would arrest you on suspish with that face. Where is he?"
"I shook him off in the store," said Pen.
"Good work!" Blanche seemed disposed to be friendlier, but was still wary. She said offhand: "Just to be fair and aboveboard I ought to tell you I carry a gun, sister." She held up the little beaded bag. It had no draw-string, and she carried it clutched about the neck. When she relaxed her grasp it opened wide revealing a wicked little automatic among her make-up.
Pen shrank back, and Blanche laughed again. "You are a tender sprout!"
"Is that boy coming up here?" asked Pen anxiously.
"Sure!"
"Couldn't I talk to you without him?"
"Nothing doing! It 'ud hurt his feelings."
"I've got things to tell you I couldn't say before a man!"
Blanche frowned. "Say, you talk like a fillum!" She studied Pen afresh. "You don't look dangerous but ... Say, you got to give me some line on your game or nothin' doin'!"
"You've got to trust me," said Pen earnestly, "or we've had all our trouble for nothing."
"Trusting's not what I'm good at, sister," said Blanche with a vigorous gesture. "You give me some line on your game first. Who the Hell are you?"
"Well I'm going to trust you," said Pen. She spread out her arms. "I'm Pendleton Broome."
For once the little creature was shaken out of her uncanny self-possession. She whistled like a boy. Her eyes glistened with excitement. "The Don Counsell case!" she exclaimed. "You're in that! ... Good God! has it got anything to do with me ... with Spike?"
"I think it has," said Pen. "That's for you to say when I've told you all I know."
"Well, shoot! ... shoot!" said Blanche excitedly.
They heard steps coming along the corridor.
Blanche laid a hand on Pen's arm. "Maybe it would be just as well if we saved Babe's tender ears...."
Babe himself opened the door and walked in.
Pen observed at close range that his years probably numbered a few more than the eighteen she had at first given him. He was a graceful youth and a comely one, but his blue eyes were as hard as china. Both Blanche and the Babe had the look of unnatural high school children. Like actors they carefully cultivated and played up this infantile effect. The hard eyes of the young-old pair afflicted Pen with a kind of despair. How could she hope to win such eyes?
The young man pulled off his cap and bobbed his head in Pen's direction. There was something about her that made him distrust his manners. His disillusioned eyes suggested that he could be masterful enough with his own kind of girl.
"Our friend here says her tale ain't fit for men's ears," said Blanche flippantly.
The young man scowled without looking at Pen. "What does she take us for, a pair of suckers?"
"Oh, I'm not afraid of her," said Blanche. "I know who she is."
"Who is she?" he asked, as if Pen were not present.
"Tell you later when I've heard the whole story."
He hesitated, scowling.
"Toddle along!" said Blanche.
"You're foolish," he muttered.
The black eyes flashed on him. "That's for me to say!"
Pen thought with rising hope: "She's beginning to accept me."
"Wait a minute," said Blanche. "I'll satisfy you." To Pen she said suddenly: "Put up your hands!"
"What for?" stammered Pen.
They jeered at her innocence. "Put up your hands!" repeated Blanche.
Pen obeyed, and Blanche with flying, practiced hands felt of her all over, while the young man stood by. Blanche nodded reassuringly to the Babe.
"I'll wait outside," he said surlily.
"Oh, if she wants to mix it up I'll oblige her," said Blanche in her flip way. "Though she is bigger than me."
"I'll wait outside," he repeated.
"Yes," said Blanche sarcastically, "and have the maid report you to the office as a suspicious character. Go down and read your paper. I'll send a boy for you."
He went.
Blanche turned mockingly to Pen. "Now, darling!"
Pen felt dimly that her flippant mockery concealed a sort of despair. She could admire the little creature's gameness and hardihood, but could not possibly meet her on that ground. It rendered her helpless. Meanwhile Blanche took a fresh cigarette, and called Pen's attention to the packet with a jerk of her head. Pen shook her head.
"Well, don't stand there like a wax-work in a store-window," said Blanche. "Disjoint yourself."
Pen sat in an armchair with her back to one of the windows. She groped within herself for something to go on with. But she felt empty. Blanche moved restlessly around the room; plumped herself on the edge of the bed, and jumped up again. She glanced at Pen with increasing irritation. Apparently a silence drove her wild.
"You're so different from what I expected," Pen murmured at last, "I scarcely know how to begin."
"What did you expect?" queried Blanche. "A singing canary?"
"I don't know ... I got the idea from the newspaper that you were in trouble."
Blanche stared, then laughed metallically. "Not me!" she said coolly. "I wasn't born yesterday."
Pen perceived the nature of the misunderstanding, and blushed. "I mean, I thought you'd lost somebody ... that you cared for."
Blanche bared her teeth suddenly like a hurt animal. "Keep off that!" she said sharply.
"But that's why I wrote to you."
"Say!" cried Blanche, ugly and callous, "if it's only sob-stuff you're after, you come to the wrong shop, see? I don't deal in it! Me, I'm water-tight and nickel-plated!"
"Why can't you be natural with me?" murmured Pen.
"I am natural. If I wanted to work you for anything, I could turn the wringer till the tub overflowed. I'm famous for it. Real tears without the aid of the glycerine bottle. But you said you wanted to be on the level."
"Do I look soft?" challenged Pen.
"Don't ask me," said Blanche, refusing to look at her. "I don't get you at all. You're completely outside my experience."
Pen tried another line. "Have you been reading the newspapers about the Counsell case?"
"Off and on. I've had troubles of my own."
"Well," Pen said low-voiced—it cost her an effort to get it out, "Don Counsell is to me what I suppose Henry Talley was to you."
If Blanche was softened she showed it in a sort of back-handed way. "You mean Spike," she said. "That's all he answered to."
Pen's instinct began to show her the way. "How did he get that name?" she asked casually.
Blanche fell into her little trap. She was standing at the other window idly twisting the cord of the blind between thumb and forefinger. Her back was to Pen. Her voice came muffled and jerky.
"Because he was so tall. And slender. But not a gowk neither. A peach of a figure. Thoroughbred. Stripped he weighed 155, and not an ounce to spare. A runner, a swimmer, a boxer; anything that needed speed and wind. And a dancer. The best dancer at Steck's pavilion. Everything he did, he did out o' sight! Class, too. He could pass anywhere as a college boy or a Wall Street broker."
She suddenly whirled around. "He was a gunman!" she cried defiantly. "Make what you like of it! He never asked for the good opinion of the likes of you, and neither do I! He was the coolest head of the lot. He went to his mark like a bulldog, and nothing could shake him off. What have you got to do with the likes of us? What do I care what you think? Both him and me had to fight our way since we were kids. We weren't going to take scraps from the tables of the rich. We were out to get the best there was for ourselves. We were outsiders. Well, the insiders were our enemies, and we went after them!"
She turned back to the window and began to sob in a hard, dry way that scared Pen. The hurrying, toneless voice went on. "To everybody else he was cool and smooth as hard enamel. Not to me. He was human to me. Lighthearted as a boy when there was no business on hand. You were sure of having a good time with Spike. Make you die laughing with his wild, comical ways. He was a man. He was real. There was a fire in him ... Oh God!"
She turned and flung herself face down across the bed, her arms hanging down the other side. "He's gone! He's gone!" she moaned. "And I'm left! ... Oh God, I can't bear it!"
Pen went and sat on the bed, and put a hand on the other girl's shoulder. Blanche flung it off roughly. Rolling over, she sat up with her tormented face not a foot away from Pen's. Pen did not shrink.
"You talk about loving a man! I know how your kind loves. Cool and dainty! What do you know about loving, brought up good with a home and a family and all? Everything provided for you. I never had nothing! Till I got him. He was the first who ever belonged to me.... I had to fight every inch of my way and be on guard every minute. He had to, too, just the same. But we could let down with each other! It eased us!"
She flung herself down in another wild burst of weeping.
Pen let it wear itself out. "I am just the same as you underneath," she murmured.
Blanche quieted down. In her abrupt way she got to her feet and went to the bureau. Emptying out the little beaded bag, she commenced to rub fresh color into her cheeks, making strange faces into the glass meanwhile. But the tears flowed faster than she could repair the damage.
"Oh damn!" she cried, throwing down the rouge pad.
She drifted around the room with her lithe, abrupt movements like a diminutive tigress, the baby face all woebegone and hollowed. "Why couldn't you leave me alone?" she said crossly. "What'd you want to get me going for! Now you know what's inside I hope you're satisfied!"
Notwithstanding the querulous tone Pen saw that she had been accepted as a fellow-woman. There was no more strangeness between them.
"What do you want of me?" Blanche went on. "What good am I to anybody now? For two cents I'd fling myself out of the window and end it."
"I thought you'd want to know what happened to Spike Talley," said Pen.
It had an electrical effect on Blanche. She ran to Pen. "Do you know? Do you know? Do you know?" she demanded, moving her little clenched fists up and down.
"I have only a suspicion. We must follow it out together."
"Well, open it! open it!"
Her tigerish look gave Pen a fresh fear. "You must promise me something!"
"Oh, my God! What?"
"Not to try to take the law into your own hands."
"What are you trying to protect the man for?"
"I'm not trying to protect him. I want to bring him into the prisoner's dock."
"Well, I promise," said Blanche unwillingly. "Who was it?"
"Do you know who Spike Talley was working for when he disappeared?"
"No!" cried Blanche. "Don't torment me with any more questions. Who was it?"
"I suspect it was Ernest Riever."
The great name pulled Blanche up short. She stared at Pen with wide troubled eyes. "What for?" she whispered hoarsely.
"Would you mind very much," Pen faltered, "if I said I suspected that it was Spike Talley who shot Collis Dongan?"
Blanche smiled scornfully. "Not at all," she said coolly. "If it was his job." Her eyes widened again. "I begin to get you," she said slowly. "You mean Riever hired Spike ... and when the job was done ... croaked him?"
Pen nodded.
"Maybe so," said Blanche somberly. "What do you know?"
Pen told her. "You see it's next to nothing," she said agitatedly. "They wouldn't call it evidence.... Just the sameI know!... What can you add to it?" she implored, clasping her hands.
Blanche stood with withdrawn gaze like a little statue of abstraction. "Not much ... right off the bat," she murmured. "But it's a working theory. Things can be found out ... Funny it never struck me that Dongan was killed the night Spike disappeared.... I knew Spike was on a job, too.... But everybody said Counsell did that.... I can tell you one thing. It was a rich man Spike was working for. One of the richest. He said as much."
"That's something," said Pen.
"I knew it was dangerous work, too. Because I heard the price. It scared me. And I'm not easy scared. But I couldn't let on.... We were going to marry on it and go out to California and live like other people. Raise things..."
The tears began to flow again, but Blanche shook her head savagely. "I'm not going to cry again! I'm not going to cry any more till I see this through!"
"Can you think of anything else?" begged Pen.
"Wait a minute.... It was part of Spike's job to dress up every evening, big white shirt front and all, he was crazy about it, he could get away with it too ... and have dinner at some swell joint ..."
"Could it have been the Hotel Warrington?"
"That as well as another.... Wait a minute.... He brought me a menu card to show me. The top was torn off with the name of the hotel. But I have the rest of it home. Easy enough to find out if that's one of the Warrington cards."
"Yes, yes!" said Pen. "Anything else? Oh, think!"
"Wait a minute! ... There was something else.... Only a little thing ... More than once Spike mentioned that his boss had elegant whiskey. Said it stood in a cut glass bottle on a table, and every time he went there his boss would say: 'Help yourself.' That seemed to strike Spike. So friendly from a man like that..."
"Riever is an expert on poisons," said Pen aghast.
Blanche's little face was like a mask of pain, the lips drawn taut over the exposed teeth. "I get you!" she murmured hoarsely. "The last time Spike helped himself..."
The two girls stared at each other.
Something seemed to click inside Blanche, and instantly she was her ordinary wary, hard, self-possessed little self again. She moved towards the telephone.
"I'll send for the Babe," she said. "You can count on him the same as me. He looked up to Spike. He's got a good head on him too, for a kid. We'll go over everything together, and then the kid and I'll fluff back. In N'Yawk there's a dozen young fellows'll help. All pals of Spike's. I'll organize them."
It was five o'clock and the stores were closing as Pen sought for the big car. She picked it out from afar, parked in the double rank that lined the Lexington street hill. For five hours it had completely passed out of her mind, and she was terrified now of facing the justly indignant chauffeur. To be sure she had told him she didn't know how long she would be, but five hours!
But it proved to be nothing in his life. That was how he spent the greater part of his days, waiting. It was easier to wait than to drive. He opened the door for her with a perfectly good-humored face, and Pen much relieved, asked him to drive to the Bellevue.
She expected another ordeal here. What sort of report would Riever's agent have made to his master? Riever was on the lookout for her. Without appearing to, Pen studied his face. Little was to be read there, though. The malicious smile told her nothing, for she had learned that it was merely a trick of his ugly features. Often when his smile was most devilish he was really trying to ingratiate himself.
When he got in, seeing Pen's meager bundles, he said: "Is that all you got all day?"
Pen suspected a thrust, though it was a natural enough remark. "I ordered most of the things sent by mail," she said. "It is quicker."
Before they had gone far Pen discovered that his humor had changed since morning. In a clumsy sort of way he was trying to express contrition for his ill-temper. He was not the sort of man who could bring out a frank apology. Pen wondered. The detective could not have given a disturbing report of her. Perhaps in order to conceal the fact that she had given him the slip, he had made up a harmless account of her day.
At any rate Riever was softened. He was less glib. He looked at Pen in a new way. He asked her little questions about her day, apparently not with any idea of entrapping her, but because he wanted to share in her concerns. Pen was much confused by this new aspect of his. It raised unanswerable questions. Was it possible that the horrible creature was really touched? How could he have a heart? Suppose instead of fighting her he came crawling to her feet? How would she meet that situation? It was horrible! horrible! Yet she was thrilled with a sense of power too. She could not have any compunctions against making Riever suffer. If only she were able to handle him! She foresaw breathless danger.
Meanwhile there they were cooped up together in the luxurious little cab. Had it been little Blanche Paglar sitting there beside Riever, her flesh would have been quivering with hatred. Pen was not of so simple a constitution. Her flesh took no alarm from his proximity. She could look at him coolly and speculatively. Her strongest feeling was one of contempt, seeing him begin to turn a little abject. He had terrible power, she never forgot that, but it was not in himself. There were moments when she found herself detached and a little sorry for him.
But while she was considering him thus dispassionately (they had got out in the country by this time) he pulled a little case out of his side pocket and snapping it open revealed a slender bracelet of platinum and diamonds exquisitely wrought.
"Will you accept it?" he murmured.
Pen started as if she had been stung, and a surprising feeling of rage welled up in her. She could scarcely speak for it.
"I couldn't possibly! I couldn't possibly!" she murmured.
"It wasn't very expensive," he murmured deprecatingly. "I purposely picked out something inexpensive."
Inexpensive! Pen stared at him. The thing had obviously cost thousands. But she saw that he was sincere in it.
"It attracted me," he went on. "It's so hard to find anything that looks as if any thought or care had gone into it. That's why I got it."
"You had no right to suppose that I would accept it," said Pen sorely.
"I didn't suppose it. I just took a chance."
Pen was reminded that shemustkeep on terms with him. "I'm sorry," she said more mildly. "I couldn't possibly."
"Is it because you detest me so?" he asked with ugly, curling lip.
Pen was startled. Her anger had betrayed her. She put her wits to work to repair the damage. "Not at all!" she said coolly. "It's because you're so rich. It sickens me the way people fawn on you, all expecting something. That's why I can't take it."
"You could take it ... without being like other people," he said.
A struggle was going on inside Pen. Not that she wanted the glittering bracelet. It was horrible to her. But her cooler self was saying: "You ought to take it to put his mind at ease. You can return it later. It is merely silly to be high-minded in dealing with a man like this!" But at the suggestion of taking it her fingers automatically closed until the nails were digging into her palms. It was useless to think of it. She knew that her fingers would break sooner than open to receive the little box.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Please put it away."
He snapped the box shut and dropped it in his pocket again. For a good while he looked out of the window without saying anything. Pen could not read his thoughts. She said to herself: "Oh well, it's got to be understood that he can't give me things!"
They dined in Annapolis. Evidently it had been ordered ahead by telephone. They were received by an expectant waiter, there were roses on the table, and the best that the little town afforded was ready and hot. Pen being a woman, could not but be pleased by such attentions, though a mocking little voice inside her whispered: "This is how silly women are snared!" She enjoyed the food thoroughly, and was charming to Riever, all the while a little dialogue went on within. One voice was saying accusingly: "Sitting here smiling and encouraging your lover's deadly enemy!" the other replying: "How else can I save my lover?"
It was eight o'clock and beginning to grow dark when they came out of the hotel. Pen shivered with repulsion at the thought of being cooped up with Riever for the sixty-mile drive through the night. She said offhand:
"Do you ever drive?"
"Oh yes," he said unsuspectingly.
"Let's put the chauffeur inside and ride out in the air. The moon will be up directly."
Riever scowled, and a hateful answer leaped to his lips. But he bit it back. "All right," he mumbled.
And so they rode.
He proved to be a skillful chauffeur. There was something quite impressive in the nonchalant way he spun the wheel with one hand on a curve. He had a bland disregard for speed laws having learned that few constables had the temerity to stop so princely an equipage. They went through Camp Parole at forty miles an hour, but fortunately without hitting any of the dark-skinned inhabitants of that humble suburb. At the green light which marks the W. B. & A. station they turned sharply and streaked away to the South to the throaty growl of an open exhaust.
Their conversation was fitful as needs be on the front seat of a speeding car. But they were entirely friendly. The episode of the bracelet had been forgotten. Both pairs of eyes were hypnotized by the strong path of light on the yellow road before them. The bordering leafage was shown up in a queer chemical green like stage scenery. The moon came up, but what's moonlight to automobilists? The reticent moon disdains to compete with headlights.
When they were within a few miles of Absolom's Island, Riever glancing at the clock under the cowl, said:
"We've come too fast. I didn't order the boat until 9.45."
He took his foot off the accelerator and the big car loafed along. Relieved of the strain, their eyes were free to wander around. All Riever's glances were for Pen's profile. He said abruptly:
"You're a funny one! One would think you blamed me for having a lot of money."
"Not blame you," said Pen. "Though I think it's unjust somehow. But you didn't make conditions."
"Why is it unjust?"
"Oh, don't ask me to argue it with you. I've never thought such things out. It's just a feeling I have."
"If somebody offered you a fortune would you turn it down?"
"Depends upon the condition attached," said Pen calmly.
"If there were no conditions."
"No, I wouldn't turn it down."
"Good!" he said. "All they say against money may be true, but just the same when people make out to despise it they're lying."
"No doubt," said Pen.
"I like to talk to you," he said. "You're real."
"Thanks," said Pen dryly.
"What do you think about me, really?" he blurted out.
"I don't know," said Pen.
"Well, it's true nobody really knows anybody else," he said..... "I wish I could get myself over to you. Since I've known you I've realized more than ever what a lot there is missing in my life. Nobody knows me.... There's a sort of wall cuts me off from everybody."
It was very confusing to Pen's ideas to discover that a man could be a black villain and sentimental too. "Oh, I wish he wouldn't!" she thought uncomfortably. Aloud she said rather sharply:
"Well, it's your own fault, isn't it?"
He chuckled. "I love the way you come back at me," he said. "... I suppose it is my own fault. I ought to climb over the wall. But it's difficult. They put me behind it young."
After awhile he said: "It's a great thought, isn't it, to think of having somebody you could be absolutely honest with?"
"Of course," said Pen. She was reminded of Blanche and Spike.
As Riever talked on she began to see how he reconciled villainy and sentiment in his mind.
"Of course it would have to be a person with a strong mind. For when I say honesty I don't mean all this sickening cant about goodness and unselfishness and meekness that the church hands out. Nobody takes that seriously any more. Man is by nature a rapacious animal. Out for what he can get. Well, his highest function must be to realize his nature. Therefore I say that the highest type of man is the man who gets what he wants regardless."
Pen thought wonderingly: "He actually looks upon himself as a romantic figure!"
As she made no answer he asked somewhat uneasily: "That's right, isn't it?"
"Not for me," said Pen. "Man may be a rapacious animal, but he is also capable of controlling his rapacity. And it seems to me it's only by controlling it that he can be even decently happy. I've read somewhere that beasts of prey always come to a violent end."
Riever smiled in a superior sort of way. "You're stronger than most women," he said with a sneer. "But you can't let go of your religious tags. I suppose it's too much to expect."
Pen only smiled.
"Now I suppose I've offended you," he said presently.
"Not in the least!" said Pen.
"No, you don't give a damn one way or the other," he said sorely.
Pen laughed. "Nothing I say pleases you!"
"You please me," he muttered, "but..." The end of his sentence trailed off unintelligibly.
What a queer mixture he was, Pen mused. Arrogance and self-distrust. Attempting to strut before her and collapsing at the lift of an eyebrow. She failed to take into account the terrible way in which her clear nature struck into the dark recesses of the ugly little man's being. He could assert himself strongly enough against anybody but her. And the more he was obliged to cringe to her, the more he desired her.
As they bowled over the causeway to the Island Riever said: "I haven't given up hope of you, though. You have a natural hatred of sham. I'll teach you to face the truth yet!"
Pen smiled on.
At the steamboat wharf at the other end of the Island the speed boat was waiting, her starboard light a startling gleam of emerald in a dusky gray world, her white-clad crew sitting quietly in the moonlight. Pen and her packages were handed aboard and they flew for Broome's Point.
Out on the water the moon indifferently resumed her sway. The whole earth was hers to tread on. The front of the island with its odd row of semi-detached, whitewashed shacks looked like something as foreign as Algiers. In the bow wave that rolled away from the speed boat there was a dull phosphorescent glow like saturated moonlight, and looking over through the shadow of the boat one could see fishes dart away like little balls of pale moonlight. Pen's face was as beautiful and passionless as the moon's.
In the sheltered nook astern the face of Riever the would-be strong man, the Devil's advocate, broke up like any calfish boy's. He fumbled clumsily for her hand.
"Don't!" whispered Pen sharply. "They'll see!"
"What of it?" he mumbled.
"I won't have it!" said Pen.
His eyebrows went up in a stare of indignant amazement. Nobody had ever spoken to him like that. But as it had absolutely no effect, they gradually came down again into the likeness of a sulky schoolboy's.
"Aw, Pen!"
She struggled hard with her repulsion. "Well ... well ... I hate to be touched!"
"One would think there was something the matter with me!" he muttered.
"This is simply weak of you," Pen said cunningly.
He looked away grinding his teeth.
Fortunately, as it was but three minutes to the Point, the scene could not be prolonged.
As they drew close to the old wharf they made out that there were a number of men upon it with lanterns and flash lights.
"What's going on there?" Riever asked his steersman.
"Couldn't say, sir. Everything was quiet when we started over."
They heard a hail from the wharf: "On board theAlexandra!"
And the answer: "Hello!"
"Give us some light here, please!"
The yacht's big search-light was thrown dazzlingly on the end of the wharf showing up all the figures in sharp silhouette.
The speed-boat approached unnoticed from the other side. The instant she drew alongside Riever sprang out and ran across. Pen guessed what was happening, and her heart seemed to stop and sink like a stone. But she followed Riever with a composed face.
All the men were looking over the other side, their heads down to keep the blinding glare out of their eyes. One had a rope with a grappling iron on the end of it. He was fishing for something while they all watched. The burly figure of Delehanty was conspicuous.
"What's wrong here?" demanded Riever.
"Don't know as there's anything wrong, sir. One of the men swimming here, said he dived into something suspicious. We're trying to locate it."
As he spoke the man with the rope said: "I've got it!" And started to haul in.
The green water surged up a little and the curved stem of the canoe rose out of it. The valise appeared, tied to a thwart.
Delehanty's harsh voice cried: "Counsell's canoe, by God! He never went away from here!"
Of one accord all the men turned and looked at Pen. She bore it unflinchingly. She disdained to turn away. Riever's face working uncontrollably with rage, looked truly devilish. Conscious that he was betraying himself, he turned his back sharply to the light.
When she had given them their fill of looking, Pen turned and commenced to walk slowly away.
"One moment, Miss!" said Delehanty.
Pen half turned. "I'm going home," she said in a composed voice. "If I'm wanted you'll find me there."
She walked on, taking care not to hurry herself. But her heart was beating with a bird's wings.
"No, you don't!" cried Delehanty, and started after her.
Riever with an odd, tense spring, caught his arm. There was a whispered colloquy, and as a result Delehanty stayed, and Riever went after Pen. The little man, tense with passion, had for the first time a sort of dignity. He was rather a terrible figure. Pen, hearing his cat-like steps behind her, was sorely afraid. He overtook her alongside the automobile that was waiting in the road.
"Will you get in?" he asked in a queer, thick voice.
Pen reflected that she would be safer in the car with the chauffeur than walking up the hill alone. She got in without speaking.
During the short ride up to the house they exchanged no word. Pen was pressed into her corner, Riever into his. He sat as still as an animal, his back slightly hunched, his hands on his thighs. Ugly-looking hands he had that the moonlight could not dignify: too small for a man, furtive-looking, hands acquainted with evil. Pen shuddered at them. When they passed between the broken gates and rounded the shrubbery, Pen saw with dismay that all the windows of the big house were dark. Her father had gone to bed.
When the car stopped she jumped out, avoiding Riever's offered assistance. Riever said to the chauffeur:
"You needn't wait. I'll walk back."
Pen was horribly afraid. Her instinct was to dart through the door, slam it in his face, and turn the key. But flight was too abject. If she yielded him ascendancy like that, she could never get it back again. She said to herself while her teeth chattered: "I'm not afraid of him! I'm not afraid of him! If I stand my ground I have nothing to fear!"
The car went back. Riever stepped up on the porch by the two boxes, his head sunk. Pen stood there.
"You tricked me!" he said with a violent gesture, but taking care not to raise his voice. "You said he'd gone from here! He's been here ever since! You're hiding him now! What did you go to town for to-day? What was in those packages you made me bring home in my car, a disguise for him?"
Pen was not dismayed by this. On the contrary as soon as he began to speak the man lost his curious, animal, impressiveness. Seeing him beside himself, Pen began to feel strong again.
"I left the packages in the boat," she said scornfully. "No doubt by this time Delehanty has examined them."
"What is this man to you?" demanded Riever.
"I've already told you. No more than any poor hunted creature."
"If you lied once you can lie again!"
Pen shrugged.
"Swear that he's not your lover!" he cried.
"To you?" cried Pen indignantly.
"Then he is your lover! You're keeping him close, I daresay. You don't shiver when he touches you!"
A great anger came to Pen's assistance. "You fool!" she cried. "Your disgusting money has turned your head! Who do you think you are to speak this way to me? I owe you nothing. Neither oaths nor explanations. Nothing!"
Riever could not stand up under it. His chin sunk, his body twisted. As a matter of fact he simply could not face the thought that the man he hated so had won the woman he desired. He snatched at any hope.
"Well ... if you're not hiding him, where is he?" he mumbled.
"I don't know. Far away, I hope."
"How could he have got away?"
"He walked up the Neck road while you were searching the shores."
"Oh God, if I could believe you!" groaned Riever.
"Well, I can't help you," said Pen. She saw that with every word she was regaining the upper hand, and her heart was strong.
A cajoling note crept into Riever's voice. "Well, you couldn't do him any further good by lying. If he's anywhere near we're bound to get him in the morning. Within an hour Delehanty 'll send a party by boat up to the head of Back Creek. They'll form a line across the Neck. At dawn we stretch another line across this end and close up. He can't escape between them."
Pen's heart contracted painfully, but she gave no outward sign. "What are you telling me this for?" she asked.
"You can't do him any further good. Leave him to his fate. Tell me where he is so I'll know you're on the square with me."
"It's nothing to me whether you think I'm on the square or not."
Riever raised his clenched hands in a gesture of impotent rage. "I've got to know!..."
"I wouldn't tell you if I knew," said Pen. "I wouldn't betray any man. Not you if you were in his place."
With a painful struggle for self-command he took still another tone. "Well, that's all right. I'll say no more about him.... But give me a pledge!"
"Why should I?" she said coldly.
Again the shaking gesture. "I can't stand this!"
"I'm afraid you'll have to!"
His voice became more abject. "Wait a minute! You don't understand. All I want is a word. You see how I am suffering. A word from you will end it!"
Pen was too startled to be angry any more. A terribly dangerous situation faced her, and she needed all her wits with which to meet it.
He took heart from her silence, her apparent uncertainty. "I'm asking you to marry me," he said with a touch of his old arrogance. "Do you get it? Mrs. Ernest Riever. Think what it means.... What do you say?"
"I won't answer you now," she murmured.
"You've got to answer me!" he said violently. "I've got to know how you stand towards me!"
She was silent.
"Look at it as a young fellow would look at a chance to advance himself," he rushed on. It was one kind of love-making. "Look what I have to offer you. A place in the sun! A place every living woman would envy you! Isn't that sweet to you? And by God! you'd grace it too, with your beauty and your high ways. You weren't shaped to wear print dresses, Pen. Think, think what you'd be. A sort of queen. A queen without any responsibilities. Carried about like a queen wherever you wanted to go, with an army to wait on you. Your slightest wish granted!"
"I don't want to be a queen," murmured Pen a little dizzied by this rush of words.
"Well then, anything you wanted.... Do you want to do good? You can have whatever sums you want to lay out in good works. Absolutely without limit. You can make a name as a philanthropist such as nobody ever had before. You couldn't refuse such a chance—you couldn't! ... What do you say?"
"I will not answer you now," repeated Pen. There was nothing else she could say.
He stared at her as if unable to credit that she should not jump at such a chance. "You've got to give me an answer!" he said showing his teeth. "I'm going to find out how you stand towards this murderer."
"Be careful!" cried Pen.
That cry of hers answered him really, but he would not face it. He became abject again. "Well, I'll say no more about him.... Suppose you have a sort of fancy for him. All right. I'll give you a chance to save him.... Marry me at once. Come away on theAlexandrawith me, and I'll call off the chase. I'll withdraw the reward. With me out of it the case against Counsell would collapse like a pricked balloon. I couldn't offer fairer than that, could I? Come back with me now. The yacht has steam up. Will you? Will you?"
Pen was shaken. "Would you really take me on such terms?" she murmured.
"Oh God! I'd take you on any terms!" he groaned.
The thought flew into Pen's brain: "You couldn't trust him!" She energetically shook her head. "I won't be rushed into anything."
"Then I won't ask for a positive answer to-night," he stuttered. "But just a sign. Just a sign to show me I'm not hateful to you! .... Kiss me, Pen!"
She hesitated.
"Kiss me, Pen ... and I'll hold Delehanty back..."
She yielded. That is to say she yielded with her mind. But the flesh rebelled. He gathered her in his arms taut as a bow-string. As his face approached hers she snapped. With a wild, blind reaction she tore herself free. No man could have held her. The open door was behind her. She darted through and slammed it shut. He put his shoulder against it, but she was at least as strong as he. She got the key turned.