Part 55 (2/2)
”_What!!!_”
The girl smiled wearily:
”Really,” she said, ”you are such a boy to be mixed in with matters of this colour. I think that's the reason you have defeated us--the trained fencer dreads a left-handed novice more than any cla.s.sic master of the foils.
”And that is what you have done to us--blundered--if you'll forgive me--into momentary victory.
”But such victories are only momentary, Mr. Neeland. Please believe it. Please try to understand, too, that this is no battle with masks and plastrons and nicely padded b.u.t.tons. No; it is no comedy, but a grave and serious affair that must inevitably end in tragedy--for somebody.”
”For me?” he asked without smiling.
She turned on him abruptly and laid one hand lightly on his arm with a pretty gesture, at once warning, appealing, and protective.
”I asked you to come here,” she said, ”because--because I want you to escape the tragedy.”
”You want _me_ to escape?”
”Yes.”
”Why?”
”I--am sorry for you.”
He said nothing.
”And--I like you, Mr. Neeland.”
The avowal in the soft, prettily modulated voice, lost none of its charm and surprise because the voice was a trifle tremulous, and the girl's face was tinted with a delicate colour.
”I like to believe what you say, Scheherazade,” he said pleasantly.
”Somehow or other I never did think you hated me personally--except once----”
She flushed, and he was silent, remembering her humiliation in the Brookhollow house.
”I don't know,” she said in a colder tone, ”why I should feel at all friendly toward you, Mr. Neeland, except that you are personally courageous, and you have shown yourself generous under a severe temptation to be otherwise.
”As for--any personal humiliation--inflicted upon me----” She looked down thoughtfully and pretended to sort out a bonbon to her taste, while the hot colour cooled in her cheeks.
”I know,” he said, ”I've also jeered at you, jested, nagged you, taunted you, kiss----” He checked himself and he smiled and ostentatiously lighted a cigarette.
”Well,” he said, blowing a cloud of aromatic smoke toward the ceiling, ”I believe that this is as strange a week as any man ever lived. It's like a story book--like one of your wonderful stories, Scheherazade.
It doesn't seem real, now that it is ended----”
”_It is not ended_,” she interrupted in a low voice.
He smiled.
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