The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1915-12-02

twenty sky-depths away from me!
CHAPTER XIII.
From a Famished Heart.
As I stood there immediate things
were vague apparitions see confus.
eddy through a hurricane-chaos of un-
tamable emotion. I had assumed that
for an experimenter in the unexpected
I could qualify as tried and seasoned.
/ Now it seemed that all prior assaults
upon my eQuanimity had been mere
kindergarten exercises in control.
Weighborne still too self-absorbed
to see that worlds were crumbling t.,
his library, turned suddenly to us with
an apologize laugh.
Frances" he said, forgive me: I
clear forgot to present u guest.
We've talked Of you so much here,
Deprayne, that I had overlooked the
fact that introductions were in order.
I'm the unfortunate type Of n idea
at a time"
Then, as I bowed. somewhat inco-
herently mumbling my acknowledge
ments, he turned his back upon the
room and busted himself again with
the desk.
wanted to leap for his throat. I
II who had presented her as a god
dess to a people under skies that rose
from the ocean and dipped again to
the ocean-needed no introduction.
The casual fashion of his amenities
was in itself an affront.
OF course, all this was insanely IN.
fair to my host, and even while my
thoughts seethed in this unamiable
vortex-so strong is the grip of arti.
fetal conventions-I was attempting
to smile with the agreeable inanity
Of a drawing room smirk.
But as she stood there I could read
in her face the record of the strange
agitation that had evidenced itself at
the door.
The lips I knew so we'll, though only
in one expression, were now grave
and a little drawn. Her eyes held a
wild questioning, as though my cont
ing brought a startling riddle. In a
moment she was again the perfectly
poised mistress Of herself.
, She came over and offered her hand
and as I took it she met my eyes,
smiling, though she must have read
in them the rising hunger of a mar
for a woman-a hunger which in me
was so poignant that my soul was the
soul of a wolf. The touch of her fin.
gers electrified me, and the tremor of
my OWL hand, before I withdrew it,
must have telegraphed whatever my
pupils failed to mirror.
That wordless message told her
how my sanity reeled on the brink of
Selling her and holding her in wild
defiance of this man, across the room,
whose name she bore.
II won't interrupt business" she
was saying with perfect serenity. "But
later I hope to see you again."
politely, while a wave of anger swept
me
She would not interrupt! She who
had snapped all the thread of life and
let my soul go plunging down the
abysses.
She would not Interrupt.
The grandfather clock against the
wall stood at nine-twenty-four. Al
nine-twenty I had been stolidly puff
fng one of Weighborne's Havana's
and listening to his disQuisitions on
court decisions and squatters' rights.
The cigar which I had dropped on an
ash tray at the first sound of her
voice still held it's ash and sent up a
thin spiral of smoke. 1t had out
lived me.
My host plunged afreeh into his pa
pers. He might as well have been
reading me ukases from the Roman
off car in the undiluted Russia. But
as the clock licked out of the erup.
tive and into the glacial stage.
felt my lops drawing into stiff
smile. I ven contrived to nod M
head in sedulous and apelike agree
ment when he raised i~nterrogative
eyes to mine. So rapidly had my vol.
canic lava of spirit hardened to clink-
ers that when the telephone called
him to a barn, where some accident
had befallen a thoroughbred colt, I
was able to turn a conventionally
masklike countenance on Frances,
who came to chat with me till his re-
turn.
She sat in a great leather chair, and
l, standing on the hearth, looked down
on her, braced for whatever might de.
velop. I was resolved to make amends
for my se~lf-revelation Of a half-hour
ago. I should at least prove myself
the capable hummer, yet I found that
I was fettered by an unaccustomed 81
lence.
There was only n topic or which
I could find words for talk with this
woman, and that topic was forbidden
She, too, for some accountable reason,
seemed hampered by a diffidence
which her bearing told me was for