Part 12 (1/2)
CHAPTER VII
THE HERO EXPLAINS
For half a minute after his t.i.tled friend had bowed himself out, Blake stood glowering at the door. The sharp crackle of a blueprint under the thrumming fingers of Griffith caused him to start from his abstraction and cross to the desk, where he dropped heavily into his former seat.
”Well?” demanded Griffith. ”Out with it.”
”With what?”
”You called him your friend. He's a likely-looking youngster, even if he _is_ the son of a duke. Same time, there's something in the wind.
Cough it up. Haven't happened to smash any heads or windows, have you, while you were--”
”No!” broke in Blake harshly. ”It's worse than that, ten times worse!
It's--it's Jenny--Miss Leslie!”
Griffith's thin lips puckered in a soundless whistle. ”Well, I'll be--!
Don't tell me you've gone and--Why, you never cared a rap for girls.”
”No, but this time, Grif--It began when I showed her through that Rand mine. Jimmy has told you what followed.”
Griffith blinked, and discreetly said nothing as to what lie had heard from Miss Leslie's father. ”H'm. I'd like to hear it all, straight from you.”
”Can't now. Too long a yarn. I want to tell you about the results.
Couldn't do it to any one else,” explained Blake, blus.h.i.+ng darkly under his thick layer of tropical tan. He sought to beat around the bush.
”Well, I proved myself fit to survive in that environment, tough as it was--sort of cave-man's h.e.l.l. Queer thing, though, Jenny--Miss Leslie--proved fit, too; that is, she did after right at the start.
She's got a headpiece, and _grit!_”
”Takes after her dad,” suggested Griffith.
”Him!”
”As to the brains and grit.”
”Not in anything else, though. They're no more alike than garlic and roses.”
”Getting poetic, eh?” cackled Griffith.
”Don't laugh, Grif. It's too serious a matter. I'd do anything in the world for her. She's the truest, grittiest girl alive. She told me straight out, there at the last, that she--she loved me.”
”Crickey!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Griffith. ”She told you that?--she?--Miss--”
”Hus.h.!.+ not so loud!” cautioned Blake. Again the color deepened in his bronzed cheeks. His pale eyes shone very blue and soft. ”It was when we heard the siren of Jimmy's steamer. She--You'll forget this, Grif?
Never whisper a hint of it?”
”Sure! What you take me for?”