Part 44 (2/2)

Wolf walked behind, his big mouth twitching with smiles he could not suppress.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

A PRIMITIVE LOVER

Wolf led Barbara into his office, lighted the lamp, and waited in patience for her first blinding surrender to grief to spend itself before speaking.

He stood over her at last with a smile, bent and touched her brown curls.

The girl sprang to her feet and faced him.

”It's no use, my beauty, I'm on to your tricks now!”

The little figure stiffened, and her gaze was steady, though her fingers trembled as she nervously twisted the tiny handkerchief she held.

”You've been playing me for a fool for the past two months. Your eyes have been laughing into mine with all sorts of little daring suggestions when you had an axe to grind at my expense. And then you had a habit of disappearing until you needed something else. You were off billing and cooing with our hero and smiling at my stupidity behind my back.”

”I've spoken to him to-day,” Barbara answered solemnly, ”the first words of love that ever pa.s.sed my lips.”

”You did pretty well for an amateur, if that was the first kiss you ever gave him.”

”It was the first!” she said, defiantly.

”It will be the last for him.”

”Perhaps,” she answered, with a curl to her lips.

”You think I don't mean it?” Wolf demanded, stepping close and thrusting his ma.s.sive head forward while his big fists closed.

”I don't doubt it,” she answered, firmly. ”But I'm not afraid of you, Herman.”

”You doubt my power?” he asked.

”Over others, no.”

”But over you?”

Wolf suddenly grasped her.

The girl shrank back in terror for an instant, and then, to his surprise, her hand was still and cold and steady. Not a tremor in the tense body. Her brown eyes, staring wide, held his gaze without a sign of weakness or of fear. Something in her att.i.tude startled the beast within him. He suddenly dropped her hand and changed his tone.

”Come, let's not quarrel! Don't be foolish. It is for you I've been scheming and planning the past year. For you the regent's palace was planned. Within five years a hundred thousand people will be here.

The State will be rich beyond our wildest dreams, and I shall be the State. I want you to sit by my side.”

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