Page:Restless Earth.djvu/217

James Harley blinked at her, his eyes unaccustomed to the light. He was dazed. Dazed by a vision he had not expected. His gaze wandered slowly from the glorious halo of her hair lit by the lamp behind her to the blue ribbon which depended from the breast of her silken pyjamas.

His mind played him a curious trick.

For a few moments the entire memory of the past month, its agony, its long nightmare, was blotted out. He was back again on the evening of the ’quake. They had had tea—fried chops and tomatoes, he remembered—he had read the paper, and now the hour was late. Pat had retired, and he, filled with an unexpected timidity, had slept on the hard settee by the breakfast-room window. Now Pat had come to see what had happened to him. She was standing in the doorway, calling to him invitingly———

“Come in,” she repeated.

“Not yet, Pat,” he answered. “I’m not quite so hardened———”

The peculiar expression on the girl’s face and the sound of his own voice awakened him. He shook his head, glanced hurriedly around and at the pistol in his hand, and he remembered.

He stepped over the threshold lightly. His eyes narrowed to slits. His hand held the pistol directed at Patricia’s heart. He closed the door with his heel and advanced menacingly, crouching horribly.

Patricia was deathly pale, but neither her voice nor her courage faltered.

“I don’t blame you,” she said, glancing at the threatening weapon, “considering what you think I am.”

She turned her back upon him and led the way into the breakfast-room, moving cautiously and signalling him to do likewise.

He did not understand her signal, but he followed her silently, intent only upon meting out “justice.”

How like a snake she was! How sinuous were her movements, emphasised by the sheen and peculiar