The Triflers Part 6

"I'd answer I was simply ridding you of a crazy man."

"They would smile. Oh, I know them! Here in Paris they won't believe that a woman who is n't married--"

She stopped abruptly.

Monte's brows came together.

Here was the same situation that had confronted him a few minutes before. Not only had he no right, but if he a.s.sumed a right his claim might be misinterpreted. Undoubtedly Teddy himself would be the first to misinterpret it. It would be impossible for a man of his sort to think in any other direction. And then--well, such stories were easier to start than to stop.

Monte's lips came together. As far as he himself was concerned, he was willing to take the risk; but the risk was not his to take. As long as he found himself unable to devise any scheme by which he could, even technically, make himself over into her father, her brother, or even a first cousin, there appeared no possible way in which he could a.s.sume the right that would not make it a risk.

Except one way.

Here Monte caught his breath.

There was just one relations.h.i.+p open to him that would bestow upon him automatically the undeniable right to say to Teddy Hamilton anything that might occur to him--that would grant him fuller privileges, now and for as long as the relations.h.i.+p was maintained, than even that of blood.

To be sure, the idea was rather staggering. It was distinctly novel, for one thing, and not at all in his line, for another. This, however, was a crisis calling for staggering novelties if it could not be handled in the ordinary way. Ten minutes had already pa.s.sed.

Monte walked slowly to Marjory's side. She turned and met his eyes.

On the whole, he would have felt more comfortable had she continued looking out the window.

"Marjory," he said--"Marjory, will you marry me?"

She shrank away.

"Monte!"

"I mean it," he said. "Will you marry me?"

After the first shock she seemed more hurt than anything.

"You are n't going to be like the others?" she pleaded.

"No," he a.s.sured her. "That's why--well, that's why I thought we might arrange it."

"But I don't love you, Monte!" she exclaimed.

"Of course not."

"And you--you don't love me."

"That's it," he nodded eagerly.

"Yet you are asking me to marry you?"

"Just because of that," he said. "Don't you understand?"

She was trying hard to understand, because she had a great deal of faith in Monte and because at this moment she needed him.

"I don't see why being engaged to a man you don't care about need bother you at all," he ran on. "It's the caring that seems to make the trouble--whether you 're engaged or not. I suppose that's what ails Teddy."

She had been watching Monte's eyes; but she turned away for a second.

"Of course," he continued, "you can care--without caring too much.

Can't people care in just a friendly sort of way?"

"I should think so, Monte," she answered.

"Then why can't people become engaged--in just a friendly sort of way?"

"It would n't mean very much, would it?"

"Just enough," he said.

He held out his hand.

"Is it a bargain?"

She searched his eyes. They were clean and blue.

"It's so absurd, Monte!" she gasped.

"You can call me, to yourself, your secretary," he suggested.

"No--not that."

"Then," he said, "call me just a _camarade de voyage_."

Her eyes warmed a trifle.

"I'll keep on calling you just Monte," she whispered.

And she gave him her hand.

CHAPTER V

PISTOLS

Evidently young Hamilton did not hear Monte come down the stairs, for he was sitting in a chair near the window, with his head in his hands, and did not move even when Monte entered the room.

"h.e.l.lo, Hamilton," said Covington.

Hamilton sprang to his feet--a shaking, ghastly remnant of a man. He had grown thinner and paler than when Covington last saw him. But his eyes--they held Covington for a moment. They burned in their hollow sockets like two candles in a dark room.

"Covington!" gasped the man.