Part 2 (1/2)

MY ADVICE, MA'AM

He stood on a bearskin rug before the blazing fire, hat in hand, boots polished, tall and trim with his handsome head bowed just a trifle. The blazing logs gave the only light to the place and his bronzed face was burnished by their reflection.

”You sent for me?” he asked as she came into the room.

She advanced from the shadows and for a moment did not reply. She felt that he was taking her in from her crown of light hair, down through the smart, high-collared waist to the short, scant skirt which showed her silken clad ankles and the modish shoes. His eyes rested on those shoes. He was thinking that they were wonderfully plain for a city girl to wear, at least the sort of city girl he had ever known. But they had a simplicity which he thought went well with her manner.

”I had planned on talking to Mr. Hepburn this evening,” she said. ”I want to get all the information and all the advice I can from the start. Carlotta said he had gone away, so, in spite of the fact that you wouldn't gamble with me this afternoon, I sent for you. I think that you can tell me many things I need to know. You don't mind my asking you, do you? You don't feel that you'd be ... be taking a chance, talking to me?”

She took his hat.

”Sit down,” motioning to the davenport before the fire. ”Would you like to start with a drink?”

”Why, yes,” eyeing her calculatingly.

”There's not much here. I slipped one bottle of Vermouth in a trunk.

I'll have to try to mix a c.o.c.ktail in a tumbler and there isn't any ice. It's likely to be a bad c.o.c.ktail, but maybe it will help us talk.”

She walked down the long room toward the dining table and sideboard at the far end and he heard gla.s.s clinking and liquids gurgling as he sat looking about with that small part of a smile on his features. All along the walls were books and above the cases hung trophies of the country: heads of deer and elk, a pelt of a mountain lion and of a bobcat, a pair of magnificent sheep's horns and a stuffed eagle. In the low windows were boxes of geraniums, Carlotta's pride.

”Here you are,” she said as she returned, holding one of the two gla.s.ses toward Beck, who rose to accept it. ”My uncle left a very small stock of drinks, but as soon as I know what I'm about I'll try to remedy that defect in an otherwise splendid establishment.” Her manner was terse, brisk, open and her eyes met another's directly when she talked.

She lifted her gla.s.s to her chin's level and smiled at him.

”To the future!” she said.

His question was adroitly timed for she had just given the gla.s.s a slight toss and was already carrying its rim toward her lips when his words checked the movement.

”I take it, ma'am, that you'll want this liquor to go where it'll do your future the most good?”

He looked from her down to the c.o.c.ktail he held and moved the gla.s.s in a quick little circle to set the yellow liquid swirling. His voice had been quite casual, but when he raised his eyes to meet her inquiring look the last of a twinkle was giving way to gravity.

”You mean?...”

”Just about what I said: that you'd like to have this brace of drinks do your future some good?”

”Why, yes, that was my intention. Why?”

”You called me down here to get a little advice. Let's commence here.”

He reached out for her gla.s.s in a manner which was at once gentle and dominating, presumptuous but unoffending, with a measure of certainty; still, by his face, she might have told that he was experimenting with her, not just sure of how she would react, not, perhaps, caring a great deal. His fingers closed on her gla.s.s and she yielded with half laughing, half protesting astonishment. He took both gla.s.ses in one hand, moved deliberately toward the hearth and tossed their contents into the flames. He then set the empty tumblers on the mantel and turned about with a questioning smile on his lips.

The sharp, slowly dwindling hiss of quenched flame which followed completely died out before she spoke. Color had leaped into her cheeks and ebbed as quickly; her lips had shut in a tight line and for a fraction of time it was as though she would angrily demand explanation.

But she said evenly enough: ”I don't understand that.”

”I'm glad you didn't show how mad it made you,” he replied.

”But why.... What made you do it?”

”You said, you know, that you wanted that liquor to go where it'd help your future. I thought the fire was about the best place for it under the circ.u.mstances.”