Part 29 (1/2)

Her voice was from the playhouse. It was steady but startling.

Something cold in it--very weary. Still he did not see her. The door was on the western side.

Skag answered.

”Oh--” came from Carlin.

There was an instant intense silence; then he heard:

”Go into the house. I thought it was Malcolm. . . . I'll join you.

Don't come here--”

He turned obediently. He had the male's absurd sense of not belonging.

. . . He might at least be silent and do as she said. A keener gust of reality then shot through him. His steps would not go on. She must have heard his change from the gravel to the gra.s.s, for she called:

”It's all right, go right in--”

”But, Carlin--”

”Don't come here, dear! It's--not for you to see now!”

He halted, an indescribable chill upon him. The low threshold was in sight, yet Carlin did not appear in the doorway. It was not more than sixty feet away, across the lawn. It may have been something that she had on. . . . A gold something. This came because of a fallen bit of gold-brown tapestry on the threshold. It had folds. Out of the cone of it, was a rising sheen like thin gold smoke. A fallen garment was the first thing that came to Skag's mind, keyed to the suggestion of some fabric which Carlin was to put on. The thing actually before his eyes had not dislodged for an instant, the thought-picture in his mind.

Right then Skag made a mistake. He had not taken ten running steps before he knew it, and halted. That which had been like rising gold smoke was a hooded head--lifting just now, dilating. Already he knew, almost fully, what the running had done. The thought of Carlin in the playhouse had over-balanced his own genius. He walked forward now, for the time not hearing Carlin's words from within. . . . The door was open; the windows were screened. The girl was held within by the coiled one on the stone. . . . She was imploring Skag to go back:

”. . . to the house!” he heard at last. ”Wait there--don't come! It is death to come to me!”

He could not see her.

”Where are you standing, Carlin?”

”Far back--by the sewing machine! . . . Will you not--will you not, for me?”

He spoke very coldly:

”While he watches me from the stone--you come forward slowly and shut the door!”

”That would anger him into flying at you--”

Quite as slowly, his next words:

”I do not think he is angry with me--”

Yet Skag was not in utter truth right there, even in his own knowledge.

His voice did not carry conviction of truth. . . . The thing unsteadied his concentration. The fact that he had started to run and thus ruffled the cobra, was still upon him like shame. It reacted to divide his forces now, at least to make tardier his self-command. Back of everything--Carlin's danger. There was a quick turn of his eye for a weapon, even as he heard a deep tone from Carlin--something immortal in the resonance:

”. . . You might save me . . . but, don't you see--I want you more!”

A _lakri_ of Bhanah's leaned against the playhouse at the side towards the road.