Part 20 (2/2)
”Perhaps, but I don't like to think of them. You see, it takes years to collect a real train of admirers, and it argues that a girl is a fixture. That's something I won't be. I'm beginning to feel like one of the sights of the city, such as Bernie points out to his Northern tourists. Of course, you're the exception. I don't think we've ever been engaged, have we?”
”Um-m! I believe not, I don't care to be considered eccentric, however. It isn't too late.”
”Bernie wouldn't allow it for a moment, and, besides, you're too serious. A girl should never engage herself to a serious-minded man unless she's really ready to--marry him.”
”How true!”
”By the way,” she chattered on, ”what in the world have you done to Bernie? He has talked nothing but Mafia and murders and vendettas ever since he saw you the other day.”
”He told you about meeting Donnelly in my office?”
”Yes! He's become tremendously interested in the Italian question all at once; he reads all the papers and he haunts the foreign quarter. He tells me we have a fearful condition of affairs here. Of course I don't know what he's talking about, but he's very much in earnest, and wants to help Mr. Donnelly do something or other--kill somebody, I judge.”
”Really! I didn't suppose he cared for such things.”
”Neither did I. But your story worked him all up. Of course, I read about _you_ long ago, and that's how I knew you were a hero. When you returned from abroad I was simply smothered with excitement until I met you. The _idea_ of your fighting with bandits, and all that! But tell me, did you discover that murderer creature?”
”Yes. We identified him.”
”Oh-h!” The girl fairly wriggled with eagerness, and he had to smile at her as she leaned forward waiting for details. ”Bernie said you asked him to go, but he was afraid. I--I wish you'd take me the next time. Fancy! What did he do? Was he a tall, dangerous-looking man? Did he grind his teeth at you?”
”No, no!” Norvin briefly explained the very ordinary happenings of his trip with the Chief of Police, to which she listened with her usual intensity of interest in the subject of the moment.
”You won't have to testify against him in those what-do-you-call-'em proceedings?” she asked as soon as he had finished.
”Extradition?”
”Why! Why, they'll blow you up, or do something dreadful!”
”I suppose I'll have to. Donnelly is bent on arresting him, and I owe something to the memory of Mattel Savigno.”
”You mustn't!” she exclaimed with a gravity quite surprising in her.
”When Bernie told me what it might lead to, it frightened me nearly to death. He says this Mafia is a perfectly awful affair. You won't get mixed up in it, will you? Please!”
The girl who was speaking now was not the Myra Nell he knew; her tone of real concern struck him very agreeably. Beneath her customary mood of intoxication with the joy of living he had occasionally caught fleeting glimpses of a really unusual depth of feeling, and the thought that she was concerned for his welfare filled him with a selfish gladness. Nevertheless, he answered her, truly:
”I can't promise that. I rather feel that I owe it to Martel”
”He's dead! That sounds brutal, but--”
”I owe something also to--those he left behind.”
”You mean that Sicilian woman--that Countess. I suppose you know I'm horribly jealous of her?”
”I didn't know it.”
”I am. Just think of it--a real Countess, with a castle, and dozens-- thousands of gorgeous dresses! Was she--beautiful?”
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