Lightnin Part 10

"No, I wasn't." He was bending over her, a courtly flattery in his gaze.

"But I wrote you!" She turned clear about on her chair, forgetting for the moment the pain in her foot, her eyes and mouth wide open with surprise at the thought that she could be thus forgotten.

"No, you didn't write me. You see, I'm only a guest, just as you are."

Here they both laughed, while Townsend placed a chair close to hers and sat down beside her.

Mrs. Davis prolonged her giggle and bent her head, her eyes seeking his under her heavily beaded lashes. "And I said--Oh!" She put her two hands to her mouth and sidled, "I took you for the clerk."

He nodded indulgently.

"Oh, and I made you pay the driver! I couldn't allow that. Just as soon as somebody comes I'll return it. I hope you'll forgive me." By this time her manner was as friendly as Townsend's feminine-loving soul could wish. She sidled her chair a little closer to his, still holding him with her eyes, wide as the innocent stare of a baby.

"I'm glad it happened," said Townsend.

"Will you allow me to introduce myself properly?"

She nodded, and he got up and went to the desk, returning with one of his campaign cards and handing it to her. "Permit me," he said, "my card." As she took it from him he explained, "I'm candidate for judge at the next election."

Immediately Mrs. Davis's interest was aroused to fever pitch. With a knowing look she leaned forward, placing a hand on his arm, while she slowly and attentively dwelt upon the words on the card. "Oh, really?"

she drawled. "Where will you be judge?"

"If I'm elected--in Reno."

"Will you try divorce cases?" the question was snapped out.

He nodded.

"Oh, I'm awfully glad to meet you!" she gushed, shaking his arm.

"The pleasure is mutual, believe me," he responded, placing his hand on top of hers. As she withdrew hers with a giggle, he went on, unabashed, "Do you intend remaining here long?"

"I'm in for six months." She sighed like a hurt baby.

He was all sympathy as he leaned toward her and apologized: "Oh, I'm very sorry for you, Mrs. Davis--If--"

"Oh, my case doesn't call for sympathy. Congratulations!

Congratulations!" she emphasized with a long-drawn-out inflection.

"Oh!!!" he shook his head wisely, adding, laughingly, "It's that way?"

A twinge from the invalid ankle concentrated Mrs. Davis's full attention as she lifted her foot, adjusting it against the crutch, thinking to stop the pain. When it had subsided she smiled up at Townsend again, pointed to it and said, with an ingenue turn of the head, "I'd probably never have been able to get a divorce if it had not been for this."

"You don't mean that your husband was brute enough to--" Townsend was shocked at the thought, but was not allowed to deliver himself of his full sympathy. Mrs. Davis was just getting into the lines of her part and she was quick to catch her cues.

"Oh, heavens, no!" she broke in upon his condolences. "This was an accident. It's a sprain, and it is quite serious, as I'm a dancer." She beamed up at him and wriggled in the chair, continuing her explanation.

"It's probably all for the best. Of course it'll break into my engagements. I'm in vaudeville, you know. I've wanted a divorce for years, but I'm always booked solid and I never stay in one place long enough to get one. When this happened I saw my chance to get a good long rest, and my freedom in the bargain." Her eyes begged his for understanding and received it.

While she had been talking Townsend had been drinking in every word she said. Her variety of attractiveness was a new one to him. It appealed to his small-town idea of being a gay blade. He had often cast longing eyes at the Eastern wives sojourning in Reno for the six months necessary to establish a residence and therefore their right to a quick freedom which brought with it no restrictions in the matter of remarrying. The majority of these prospective divorcees were of a larger world and reckoned in figures of which Lemuel Townsend did not know the simplest rules. The only notice he had received for his ambitions being a smile to his face and a snicker at his back. But here was some one who not only was taking notice of him, but was actually meeting his advances half-way. Besides, she was pretty, and he could never withstand a pretty woman. As she finished the first lap of her story he exclaimed, "That certainly is a scheme!"

"It's nice of you to listen to it all," she murmured, apologetically, moving her idle crutch up and down as if writing her mood in invisible letters on the floor.

"I'm glad you told it to me. Do you know--" and he sidled in his chair, while a sugar-laden approval beamed at her in a steady flow from over the top of his gla.s.ses, "from the minute I saw you enter the door I was worried about you--I was afraid--Well, it was a great relief to find that you had two good--" he halted in hopeless confusion, as his eyes sought her ankle. He took his handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose furiously, hoping to hide the real reason for a blush that seemed to have come to stay, having settled in a deep crimson even from the nape of his neck to the top of a head whose spa.r.s.e hair refused to hide his embarra.s.sment.

But Margaret Davis, seeing no reason for shyness, just smiled graciously upon him and hastened to standardize her reputation. "Any one who has seen me dance can inform you about--well--about--_them_," she said seriously, adding by way of flavor to her remark another languis.h.i.+ng droop of her eyelids. There was a moment of coy silence for the two of them. Then Mrs. Davis asked, "Are you stopping here for pleasure or are you doing time?"

"I'm a bachelor."

"How nice!" she replied, in honeyed accents, as she leaned toward him and put a soft hand on his arm. Undoubtedly in Lem Townsend she saw the possibility of an easy divorce trial. Besides, Townsend was by no means without personal attractions. Mrs. Davis gazed at him, her languis.h.i.+ng smile concealing the feminine appraisal in her eyes. She decided to cultivate the possibility, and was about to say something in furtherance of her object when she was startled by a gentle voice coming from directly behind her and inquiring, pleasantly, "Rheumatism?"

Bill Jones had entered the lobby un.o.bserved by the pair and was leaning over the desk idly, looking at his new guest with kindly interest.

Townsend introduced Bill, and Mrs. Davis, with Lem's a.s.sistance, rose and took up a pen.

"No," she said; "I have not acquired rheumatism as yet, Mr. Jones. I'll register--you're reserving a room for me."

"How long you here for?" Bill asked.

"The usual," she sighed, and rolled her eyes toward Townsend.

"Eh?" Bill grinned and walked slowly from behind the desk.

"Six months," she drawled, wearily.

Politely staying her hand and taking the pen from her, Bill pointed to the other desk. "This is the six months' side--over here," he said, sauntering to the back of the Nevada desk.

When the lady was at last settled in her room, and Townsend had left--having made an arrangement to dine with Mrs. Davis that evening--Bill found himself strangely alone for the moment. Instantly he seized on the opportunity to make a thorough investigation into the mysterious disappearance of a half-filled flask. After turning the Nevada desk inside out, at last he was convinced that the disappearance was a fact and not a matter of imagination. "Guess mother has seequesterated it," he remarked, to himself. "Not that I'm hankerin'

after it so much myself, but I told Zeb I had it, an' when he finds that I 'ain't, the moral effect on Zeb will sure be bad."

As Bill, rolling a cigarette, meditated on this, Mrs. Harper, followed by her maid and still casting about like a frightened bird in search of cover, tiptoed into the lobby, went uncertainly to the California desk and took up a pen.

Wisdom twitching at the corners of his mouth, Bill was beside her at once.

"Is either o' you ladies gettin' a divorce?" he inquired, in a helpful tone, his question including the indignant maid. "'Cause, if you are,"

he explained, "I just wanted to let you know that you are flockin' round the wrong desk."

Mrs. Harper fluttered some more. "Oh, I--er--but--where--"

"This way, my dears," Bill said, in a gentle, fatherly tone, as he led them to the Nevada desk.

Mrs. Harper signed her name. As Bill read it he looked up at her with sudden interest. He put a detaining hand on her arm before she could flutter away, and at the same time, turning to the maid, he directed her to have a chair for a moment--at the other side of the lobby, out of earshot.

When the maid had complied Bill looked down at the register. "Mrs.

Harper, Truckee," he repeated. Then, glancing up at the surprised and startled little woman, he asked, "Does your husband happen to drive a green automobile, ma'am?"

Mrs. Harper stared at him with the big, frightened eyes of a child.

"Why--er--yes. But--why do you ask?"

"I met him last night," said Bill. "He's a fast driver, ain't he? Gets to Truckee in two hours!"