Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1944-10-13
CHAPTER v


fury directed at her meekness. She
leaned back against the pillows. She
intended to take shower in mo-
ment and dress in the bathroom.
She fell asleep. The ringing of
the telephone awoke her. She opened
her eyes and looked about the state
room with dismay. 1t was empty!
Miss Lanning had finished dressing
and was gone!
Zorie glanced at her wristwatch.
It was 7:21!
She answered the phone. 1t was
Paul again. His tones were the icy
reserved tones of a man who is fu-
rious but who, because others are
present, is controlling himself.
"Zorie, what's become of you?
We're all ready to start dinner"
"I'll explain everything" Zorie an
swered TREMENDOUSLY. II won't be a
jiffy."
After she had taken her shower,
and was looking for a bath towel,
she learned why. There had been
four hand towels and four bath tow
els. Miss Lanning had used them
all. They were strewn over the bath
room floor.
A hot wave of anger went over
Zorie, and for a moment she stood,
dripping, with her fists and her teeth
clenched. At that moment, she hat
ed the slim, beautiful, arrogant Miss
Lanning.
She opened her trunk, having to
look through her bag for the key,
and found three hand towels she
had intended embroidering for Aunt
Hannah's birthday. They were mere
Wisps of towels. She could not dry
herself at all thoroughly.
"Some day." Zorie announced,
"1'm going to be like that. I'm 60
ing to be arrogant and ruthless and
and brutal"
She dressed with haste. She had
little time to give her hair. She
slipped into the navy-blue dress,
tipped it up and stepped back and
considered herself in the mirrors.
She opened the door. A man was
standing in the corridor dozen feet
away with an unlighted cigarette in
his mouth. He was Ticking the
wheel of a lighter. He held the
flame to the cigarette, but his eyes
were on Zorie and they remained on
her as she shut the door and started
along the corridor toward him.
He was a short man in a dark
gray suit, with wide sloping Shout
ders and scrubby-looking dark red
hair. Slanting eye-sockets gave his
dark eyes cynical expression.
AS she passed him, his eyes mar
rowed, and they were as bright, as
alert, as the eyes of a ferret. He
made her feel uneasy.
She found an elevator and went
up to B Deck. AS she entered the
wide cross corridor, she saw a man
coming down the stairs from the
deck above. She noticed him only
because he looked so smart and at
ease in his white dinner jacket and
black trousers. His shiny black hair
was grazing at the temples, and he
looked distinguished and important.
Also, he seemed foreign and inter-
estingly dissipated. He was the kind
of man about whom you might say
that the skin under his eyes was the
graveyard of his follies.
AS Zorie's glance became a stare,
and her heart suddenly pounded, he
noticed her. He stared, then smiled
with one corner of his mouth. His
lids came down little and he now
looked as a blase man might look
when he scents prey.
He said in a cultured, purposeful
voice, Good EVENING"" and paused.
Zorie stared at him a moment
longer with bright fascinated eyes,
then started down a corridor almost
at run.
Men with dark faces and little
white scars under their left eyes
were, she supposed, not unusual, yet
she was sure, she was positive, that
this black-haired. dark-skinned man
with the little star-shaped scar I'M
der his left eye was the man she
had seen in the green sedan when
Steve Duncan had hid behind the
telephone pole-and her.
Paul opened the door to her knock.
She walked into the room with her
heart still pounding. Steve and the
admiral were at the other end of the
room, which was fully twice as large
as the room she and Amber Lanning
were sharing. Beyond was another
large room.
The three men wore white or pale
colored evening jackets and black
trousers. She glanced at Paul, tall
and straight and splendid-looking,
with the expression in his eyes she
had been prepared for.
"I'm sorry I'm late," she said
meekly.
Being late" the admiral said,
lis beautiful woman's privilege"
With his curly white hair, his fur
owed red face and his lean erect