Page:Amazing Stories Volume 16 Number 06.djvu/251

a daze, I followed her as she indicated one of those low down deep arm chairs into which I plunked thinking I'd never be able to get out of it. She sat down across from me, still with that black thing hiding her.

"Why the make-up?" I asked to start the ball rolling.

"This is the way I always have to appear in public and this is why I can never see or know Wally Martin," she said sadly. Then she swept the veil and said, "Look at me."

I looked. And, if I never leave ground again, she bore the slave mark of Mercury! The lower half of her face was as green as that stuff they call grass that grows between the cities.

Tears trembled on the longest lashes I ever saw on the swellest big blue eyes in the world. The gal's features were perfect, her figure was perfect, and she'd have been a dream if it weren't for that damn mark of the tyrant of the inner planet.

She threw her head back proudly. "It's the mark of disgrace and it's there to stay, but I'm not—I wasn't—"

"I believe you," I said. "Forget it."

"I'll not forget it; I can't," she retorted. "I was captured and I was marked for his slave harem. But I escaped and finally got to a rescue ship without—"

"Forget it," I said. She was making me nervous. Hell, you couldn't help but believe this girl. She was every inch a lady, every inch a queen. "And I don't think it'd make any difference with Wally, knowing him as I do," I told her. And I meant it.

"Maybe not," she agreed, "not personally. But don't you see I could never be anything to him. Never marry him, even if he wanted me. I can never marry any man; I'd be too much of a drawback. Any man who'd be willing to take me would be cut off from all of his friends, from his old life entirely. He'd have to go into ignominious hiding with me. It's just impossible. But I do—I do think a great deal of Wally. I've watched and watched him when he didn't know."

The rich red lips were trembling and the tears were frankly oozing now. "Why, you poor kid!" I had to say. "You poor kid."

"Don't pity me," she begged, drying her tears. "I hate to be pitied."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," I said, getting an idea that I hated to think of myself. "Wally's been badly burned about his face, the doc tells me. He's all bandaged up now. Suppose now he should be—marked. Would that make any difference?"

A flash of hope made those big eyes two blue stars. "Why, why, it might." Then the glad light died out. "Oh, but that can't happen to Wally. It can't. The surgeons do such marvelous things now. He'll be all right."

I wished then that I thought he would. Of course I couldn't believe Wally wouldn't get well but I had an awful feeling about him in the middle of me. And here this girl was bursting her heart for him. I felt damn useless all of a sudden and got out of that deep chair a lot easier than I'd ever have believed.

"Well, I guess I'll have to leave, Miss Vaughn," I drooled, feeling helpless as a rabbit all of a sudden. "But I'll call you first thing tomorrow when I find out how he's coming. All right?"

"That's fine of you," she said, dropping her veil again. "I work tonight but will be in any time after eight in the morning."

And that's the way we left things.

THEY called me from the hospital before six next morning, asking me