The Salamander Part 24

"You read character, too," he answered, smiling impersonally. "It's true--it's safer and more amusing! Let me behind the scenes. I like it--that's all I ask!"

"All?"

"Quite all!" he said dryly. Then: "What are you going to do with Sa.s.soon and Harrigan Blood?"

He asked the question without preparation, to throw her off her guard, but she avoided it by asking another.

"Are you really just looking on?" she said, drawing her eyebrows together. "Only curious?"

"It's as I told you," he said. "You see how I am here. Can't you tell?"

She shook her head.

"I can't tell; I can't tell anything about you!"

"You were not very nice to me at the luncheon!" he said irrelevantly.

"I know it!"

"You would hardly speak to me!"

"No."

"Why?"

"Shall I tell you? Because--because you are too strong for me!" she said solemnly, her eyes growing curiously round and large.

He laughed.

"Now, Miss Mischief, that's too evident!"

"It's true! I felt it from the start," she said simply. "Sit down."

He credited her with being deeper than he had believed, whereas she had only obeyed an impulse.

"Is Blainey a possibility too?" he asked suddenly.

"What! he has guessed even Blainey?" she thought, startled; but, as she began an evasive answer, satisfied, he turned to a trunk, closed it and installed himself, folding his arms.

"I'll tell you what I am going to do with Sa.s.soon and Blood," she said suddenly. She had camped on another trunk, swinging one little foot incased within a red slipper, ten feet of the faded rug between them. "I am going to make--oh, a lot of trouble!"

"You've started it already!"

"Tell me--was there really a terrible row?" she asked, clapping her hands eagerly. "All over little me?"

"H'm, yes--rather! We had some difficulty in stopping it!" He looked at her, amused, with the gaze of one who appreciates the irony of values.

"Do you know, you pretty little atom, that you are setting in motion forces that may shake millions?"

"Oh, how lovely! Tell me!"

"Perhaps I'd better not!" he said grimly. "And suppose I told you that if you made Sa.s.soon and Blood enemies over your charming little person, that Blood is capable of turning all the force of his newspapers against the Sa.s.soon interests, making ugly revelations and bringing on a mild panic, would you persist?"

"Certainly I should!" she exclaimed enthusiastically.

"So is history made!" he thought to himself. "Now, answer me honestly."

"Well?"

"Don't you ever feel any temptation--"

"With Sa.s.soon--money?"

He put out his arm in a gesture that swept the room.

"You are satisfied with this?"

"Do you know, that's just what he asked--the very words!"

"Yes; Sa.s.soon would be pretty sure to ask that. And you are never tempted?"

"I thought you knew us!" she said proudly. "You don't--no, you don't understand at all!--or you wouldn't have asked that question!" But, not yet ready to talk, wis.h.i.+ng to put a score of questions to him, she changed abruptly: "So, Your Honor, you are just curious about me?"

"I am--very curious!" he said, looking at her with a touch of his magisterial manner. "It's a queer game you are playing!"

"It's such fun!"

"Yes," he said, unbending; "it is fun; but what's going to come of it?"

She flung out her arms.

"_Quien sabe!_"

"I wonder what is the answer," he said, with a touch of solemnity.

"There are so many possible answers!"

"Oh, now, Your Honor," she said, with a pouting look, a little restless, too, under his fixed gaze, "are we to be as serious as all that?"

"You girls are marvelous," he said in a lighter tone, "and you don't even appreciate the wonders you accomplis.h.!.+"

"Go on! Cross-examine me! It's a new experience!" she said, dropping her hands into her lap resignedly, with mock submission. She felt as though she were playing a great role, and that before an audience which would not respond--which she was determined should respond; and yet, much as she wished to try his composure, she was still groping for the proper tactics.

"Some day will you tell me something?"

"I'm afraid, Your Honor, I'd tell you almost anything! What is it?"

"Where you come from--your home--why you left--"

"The story of my life--right away!"