Page:Weird tales v36n07 1942-09.djvu/28

watching both my guests with curious speculation that had risen in me since that afternoon's encounter.

I could have sworn that Hank's black eyes held an expression at once envious and inimical as he bent his gaze dourly on Peter's handsome, perplexed young face. I was both dismayed and sorry, for the older man possessed a weapon that might cut the brightness out of Peter's life; Magda Farrar was his foster-daughter and his ward, and to young Peter she symbolized and embodied everything desirable in life.

"Come out of it, you two," growled I, irritated and uneasy at their silence. "This is a shooting party, not a wake."

Peter's bright blue eyes turned from the fire. He met my gaze and chuckled.

Hank's lowering face followed the younger man's movement, then suddenly shifted uneasily. He must have noticed that I was observing his unguarded expression for his mouth compressed tightly for a moment before he spoke.

"Hell of a party," said Hank distinctly, "when a man can't chuck a pretty girl under the chin without having a fool youngster butt into his fun."

It was out now. I regarded him with I regarded him with hidden dismay. The underlying currents of hidden emotion had forced their way to the surface and could no longer be tacitly ignored. I was furious at Hank for his lack of restraint.

More than that, I had been—still was—just as disgusted at his behavior that afternoon as had been Peter. Being older than either of my two guests, I had, possibly, learned to be diplomatic; sufficiently so, at least, not to have thrust myself unnecessarily into a situation à deux where my tactful absence would have been better appreciated than my presence. I had seen nothing, after all, but Peter's restraining hand on Hank's restive shoulder, and the disappearing swirl of a girl's abbreviated skirts and long cloak into a part of the woods where the low undergrowth was not yet entirely denuded of foliage. All I had heard had been Hank's exclamation, coming almost directly upon the girl's scream. Peter must have been quick in his reaction.

"Take your hand off me, you damned young cub!" had shouted Hank, with uncontrolled passion for which I did not at the moment entirely blame him. No man relishes the admonishing restraint of a youngster, in front of a woman particularly, no matter how much he may have deserved it.

Knowing Hank's proclivities, I could reconstruct the scene fairly well. He must have come upon the girl before she realized his proximity, and mischievously pulled off her pointed cap with the tassel that hung to her shoulder, confidently relying upon his vaunted masculine charm to smooth over the situation if it should unexpectedly tend toward the unpleasant.

The girl had sprung to her feet, snatched for her cap, which Hank had thrust tormentingly behind him. Whereupon she had let out that eldritch scream. And the scream brought Knight-Errant Peter tearing out of the woods behind them, to remonstrate with Hank, who had naturally resented the interference. The girl had taken advantage of Hank's momentary unguardedness to snatch, vainly, for her pointed cap, then had fled incontinently without it.

With dismayed astonishment I had heard her scream, for it was not a scream of surprise; it was a cry of pure anger, of such depth and intensity that it started shivers running up and down my backbone. It was almost un-human in its expression of thwarted fury; arousing in me a powerful curiosity to see this girl who was so capable of such a strength of emotion. At the same time, I felt a dread of seeing her, as if she might prove to be