Trailin'! Part 24

"Maybe this is an old method, Bard; but around this place it'd be a quick way of gettin' shot."

"Angry?"

"You'd peeve a mule."

"This was only an introduction. The next thing is to sit close beside you and s.h.i.+ft the lamp so that the light would s.h.i.+ne on your face; then take your hand--"

He suited his action to his word.

"Let go my hand, Bard. It's like the rest of me--not a decoration but for use."

"Afraid of me, Sally?"

"Not of a regiment like you."

"Then of my method?"

"Go on; I'm game."

"But this is all there is to it."

"What d'you mean?"

"Just what I say. Having observed that you haven't set off any of your advantages, I will sit here and look into your face in silence, which is as much as to say that no matter how you dress you can't spoil a very excellent figure, Sally. I suppose you've heard that before?"

"Lots of times," she muttered.

"But you wouldn't hear it from me. All I would do would be to sit and stare and let you imagine what I'm thinking. And you'd begin to see that in spite of the way you do your hair you can't spoil its colour nor its texture."

He raised his other hand and touched it.

"Like silk, Sally."

He studied her closely, noting the flush which began to touch her cheeks.

"Part of the game is for you to keep looking me in the eye."

"Well, I'll be--Go on, I'm game."

"Is it hard to sit like this--silently? Do I do it badly?"

"No, you show lots of practice. How many have you tried this method on, Bard?"

He made a vague gesture and then, smiling: "Millions, Sally, and they all liked it."

"So do I."

And they laughed together, and grew serious at the same instant.

"All silence--like this?" she queried.

"No; after a while I would say: 'You are beautiful.'"

"You don't get a blue ribbon for that, Bard."

"Not for the words, but the way they're said, which shows I mean them."

She blinked as though to clear her eyes and then met his stare again.

"You know you are beautiful, Sally."

"With a pug nose--freckles--and all that?"

"Just a tip-tilt in the nose, Sally. Why, it's charming. And you have everything else--young, strong, graceful, clear."

"What d'you mean by that?"

"Clear? Fresh and colourful like the sunset over the desert. Do you understand?"

Her eyes went down to consider.

"I s'pose I do."

"With a touch of awe in it, because the silence and the night are coming, and the stars walk down, one by one--one by one. And the wind is low, soft, musical, whispering, as you do now--What if this were not a game of suppose, Sally?"

She wrenched herself suddenly away, rising.

"I'm tired of supposing!" she cried.

"Then we'll call it all real. What of that?"

That colour was unmistakably high now; it ran down from her cheeks and even stained the pure white of the throat where the flap of the s.h.i.+rt was open. He was excited as a hunter who has tracked some new and dangerous animal and at last driven it to bay, holding his gun poised, and not knowing whether or not it will prove vulnerable.

He stepped close, eager, prepared for any wild burst of temper; but she let him take her hands, let him draw her close, bend back her head; hold her closer still, till the warmth and softness of her body reached him, but when his lips came close she said quietly: "Are you a rotter, Bard?"

He stiffened and the smile went out on his lips. He stepped back.

She repeated: "Are you a rotter?"

He raised the one hand which he still retained and touched it to his lips.

"I am very sorry," said Anthony, "will you forgive me?"

And with her eyes large and grave upon him she answered: "I wonder if I can!"

Butch Conklin looked up, raising his bandaged head slowly, like a white flag of truce, with a stain of red growing through the cloth. He stared at the two, raised a hand to his head as though to rub away the dream, found a pain too real for a dream, and then, like a crab which has grown almost too old to walk, waddled on hands and knees, slowly, from the room and melted silently into the dark beyond.