Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 Part 34

"I tell to you that Americano agent will undo us."

"How?" demanded the calmer Sp.a.w.n.

"Already he has made Markes suspicious."

"Chut! You can befool Markes, Perona. You have for years been doing it."

"This meddling fellow, he has met Jetta!"

"I do not believe it." There was a sudden grimness to Sp.a.w.n's tone at the thought. "I do not believe it. Jetta would not dare."

"You should have seen him flush when Markes mentioned at the conference this morning that I am to marry Jetta. No one could miss it. He has met her--I tell it to you--and it must have been last night."

"So, you say?" Jetta could see her father's face, white with suppressed rage. "You think that? And it is that this Grant might be your rival, that worries you? Not our plans for to-night, which have real importance--but worrying over a girl."

"She would not talk to me. She would not come out. He has no doubt put wild ideas into her head. Sp.a.w.n, you listen to me. I have always been more clever than you at scheming. Is it not so? You have always said it. I have a plan now, it fits our arrangements with De Boer, but it will rid us of this Americano. When all is done and I have married Jetta--"

Sp.a.w.n interrupted impatiently. "You will marry Jetta, never fear. I have promised her to you."

And because, as Jetta well knew, Perona had made it part of his bargaining in financing Sp.a.w.n. But this they did not now mention.

"To get rid of this Grant--well, that sounds meritorious. He is dangerous around here. To that I agree."

"And with Jetta--"

"Have done, Perona!" With sudden decision Sp.a.w.n leaped to his feet. "I do not believe she would have dared talk to Grant. We'll have her out and ask her. If she has, by the G.o.ds--"

It fell upon Jetta before she had time to gather her wits. Sp.a.w.n strode to her door, and found it fastened on the inside.

"Jetta, open at once!"

He thumped with his heavy fists. Confused and trembling she unsealed it, and he dragged her out into the sunlight of the garden.

"Now then, Jetta, you have heard some of what we have been saying, perhaps?"

"Father--"

"About this young American? This Grant?"

She stood cringing in his grasp. Sp.a.w.n had never used physical violence with Jetta. But he was white with fury now.

"Father, you--you are hurting me."

Perona interposed. "Wait Sp.a.w.n! Not so rough! Let me talk to her.

Jetta, _chica mia_, your Greko is worried--"

"To the h.e.l.l with that!" Sp.a.w.n shouted. But he released the girl and she sank trembling to the little seat by the pergola.

Sp.a.w.n stood over her. "Jetta, look at me! Did you meet--did you talk to Grant last night?"

She wanted to deny it. She clung to his angry gaze. But the habit of all her life of truthfulness with him prevailed.

"Y-yes," she admitted.

CHAPTER IX

_Trapped_

"Sp.a.w.n! Hold!"

There was an instant when it seemed that Sp.a.w.n would strike the girl.

The blood drained from his face, leaving his dark eyes blazing like torches. His hamlike fist went back, but Perona sprang for him and clutched him.

"Hold, Sp.a.w.n: I will talk to her. Jetta, so you did--"

The torrent of emotion swept Sp.a.w.n; weakened him so that instead of striking Jetta, he yielded to Perona's clutch and dropped his arm. For a moment he stood gazing at his daughter.

"Is it so? And all my efforts, going for nothing, just like your mother!" He no more than murmured it, and as Perona pushed him, he sank to the bench beside Jetta. But did not touch her, just sat staring. And she stared back, both of then aghast at the enormity of this, her first disobedience.

I never had opportunity to know Sp.a.w.n, except for the few times which I have mentioned. Perhaps he was at heart a pathetic figure. I think, looking back on it now that Sp.a.w.n is dead, that there was a pathos to him. Sp.a.w.n had loved his wife, Jetta's mother. As a young man he had brought her to the Lowlands to seek his fortune. And when Jetta was an infant, his wife had left him. Run away, abandoning him and their child.

Perhaps Sp.a.w.n was never mentally normal after that. He had reared Jetta with the belief that sin was inherent in all females. It obsessed him. Warped and twisted all his outlook as he brooded on it through the years. Woman's instincts; woman's love of pleasure, pretty clothes--all could lead only to sin.

And so he had kept Jetta secluded. He had fought what he seemed to see in her as she grew and flowered into girlhood, and denied her everything which he thought might make her like her mother.

Sp.a.w.n met his death within a few hours of this afternoon I am describing. Perhaps he was no more than a scheming scoundrel. We are instinctively lenient with our appraisal of the dead. I do not know.

"Jetta," Perona said to her accusingly, "that is true, then: you did talk with that miserable Americano last night? You sinful, lying girl."

The contrition within Jetta at disobeying her father faded before this attack.

"I am not sinful." The trembling left her and she sat up and faced the accusing Perona. "I did but talk to him. You speak lies when you say I am sinful."

"You hear, Sp.a.w.n? Defiant: already changed from the little Jetta I--"

"Yes, I am changed. I do not love you, Senor Perona. I think I hate you." Her tears were very close, but she finished: "I--I won't marry you. I won't!"

It stung Sp.a.w.n. He leaped to his feet. "So you talk like that! It has gone so far as this, has it? Get to your room! We will see what you will and what you won't!"

Again the crafty Perona was calmest of them all. He thrust himself in front of Sp.a.w.n.