LITMIR.BIZ

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I cannot call to mind as fair

       A symphony in brown.

      "Then evenings, you blithely don

       A daintiness of white,

       To flash a very paragon

       Of lightsomeness—and light!

       But when the rounds of pleasure cease,

       And you retire at night,

       The Godling on your mantelpiece

       Must know a fairer sight!"

      "Sweet!" laughed Pat. "But personal. And anyway, how do you know I've a godling on my mantel? Don't you credit me with any modesty?"

      "If you haven't, you should have! The vision I mentioned ought to enliven even a statue."

      "Well," said the girl, "I have one—a jade Buddha, and with all the charms I flash before him nightly, he's never batted an eyelash. Explain that!"

      "Easily. He's green with envy, and frozen with admiration, and struck dumb by wonder."

      "Heavens! I suppose I ought to be thankful you didn't say he was petrified with fright!" Pat laughed. "Oh Nick," she continued, in a voice gone suddenly dreamy, "this is marvelous, isn't it? I mean our enjoying ourselves so completely, and our being satisfied to be so alone. Why, we've never even danced together."

      "So we haven't. That's a subterfuge we haven't needed, isn't it?"

      "It is," replied the girl, dropping her glossy gleaming black head against his shoulder. "And besides, it's much more satisfactory to be held in your arms in private, instead of in the midst of a crowd, and sitting down, instead of standing up. But I should like to dance with you, Nick," she concluded.

      "We'll go dancing, then, whenever you like."

      "You're delightfully complaisant, Nick. But—you're puzzling." She glanced up at him. "You're so—so reluctant. Here we've been driving an hour, and you haven't tried to kiss me a single time, and yet I'm quite positive you care for me."

      "Lord, Pat!" he muttered. "You never need doubt that."

      "Then what is it? Are you so spiritual and ethereal, or is my attraction for you just sort of intellectual? Or—are you afraid?" As he made no reply, she continued, "Or are those poems you spout about my physical charms just—poetic license?"

      "They're not, and you know it!" he snapped. "You've a mirror, haven't you? And other fellows than I have taken you around, haven't they?"

      "Oh, I've been taken around! That's what perplexes me about you, Nick. I'd think you were actually afraid of kissing me if it weren't—" Her voice trailed into silence, and she stared speculatively ahead at the ribbon of road that rolled steadily into the headlights' glare.

      She broke the interval of wordlessness. "What is it, Nick?" she resumed almost pleadingly. "You've hinted at something now and then. Please—you don't have to hesitate to tell me; I'm modern enough to forgive things past, entanglements, affairs, disgraces, or anything like that. Don't you think I should know?"

      "You'd know," he said huskily, "if I could tell you."

      "Then there is something, Nick!" She pressed his arm against her. "Tell me, isn't there?"

      "I don't know." There was the suggestion of a groan in his voice.

      "You don't know! I can't understand."

      "I can't either. Please, Pat, let's not spoil tonight; if I could tell you, I would. Why, Pat, I love you—I'm terribly, deeply, solemnly in love with you."

      "And I with you, Nick." She gazed ahead, where the road rose over the arch of a narrow bridge. The speeding car lifted to the rise like a zooming plane.

      And suddenly, squarely in the center of the road, another car, until now concealed by the arch of the bridge, appeared almost upon them. There was a heart-stopping moment when a collision seemed inevitable, and Pat felt the arm against her tighten convulsively into a bar of steel. She heard her own sobbing gasp, and then, somehow, they had slipped unscathed between the other car and the rail of the bridge.

      "Oh!" she gasped faintly, then with a return of breath, "That was nice, Nick!"

      Beyond the bridge, the road widened once more; she felt the car slowing, edging toward the broad shoulder of the road.

      "There was danger," said her companion in tones as emotionless as the rasping of metal. "I came to save it."

      "Save what?" queried Pat as the car slid to a halt on the turf.

      "Your body." The tones were still cold, like grinding wheels. "The beauty of your body!"

      He reached a thin hand toward her, suddenly seized her skirt and snatched it above the silken roundness of her knees. "There," he rasped. "That is what I mean."

      "Nick!" Pat half-screamed in appalled astonishment. "How—" She paused, shocked into abrupt silence, for the face turned toward her was but a remote, evil caricature of Nicholas Devine's. It leered at her out of blood-shot eyes, as if behind the mask of Nick's face peered a red-eyed demon.

      5.

       A Fantasy of Fear

       Table of Contents

      The satyr beside pat was leaning toward her; the arm about her was tightening with a brutal ruthlessness, and while still staring in fascination at the incredible eyes, she realized that another arm and a white hand was moving relentlessly, exploratively, toward her body. It was the cold touch of this hand as it slipped over her silk-sheathed legs that broke the chilling spell of her fascination.

      "Nick!" she screamed. "Nick!" She had a curious sensation of calling him back from far distances, the while she strove with both hands and all her strength to press him back from her. But the ruthless force of his arms was overcoming her resistance; she saw the red eyes a hand's breadth from her own.

      "Nick!" she sobbed in terror.

      There was a change. Abruptly, she was looking into Nick's eyes, blood-shot, frightened, puzzled, but indubitably Nick's eyes. The flaming orbs of the demon were no more; it was as if they had receded into Nick's head. The arm about her body relaxed, and they were staring at each other in a medley of consternation, amazement and unbelief. The youth drew back, huddled in his corner of the car, and Pat, breathing in sobs, smoothed out her rumpled apparel with a convulsive movement.

      "Pat!" he gasped. "Oh, my God! He couldn't have—" He paused abruptly. The girl gazed at him without reply.

      "Pat, Dear," he spoke in a low, tense murmur, "I'm—sorry. I don't know—I don't understand how—"

      "Never mind," she said, regaining a vestige of her customary composure. "It's—all right, Nick."

      "But—oh, Pat—!"

      "It was that near accident," she said. "That upset you—both of us, I mean."

      "Yes!" he said eagerly. "That's what it was, Pat. It must have been that, but Dear, can you forgive? Do you want to forgive me?"

      "It's all right," she repeated. "After all, you just complimented my legs, and I guess I can stand that. It's happened before, only not quite so—convincingly!"

      "You're sweet, Pat!"

      "No; I just love you Nick." She felt a sudden pity for the misery in his face. "Kiss me, Nick—only gently."

      He pressed his lips to hers, very lightly, almost timidly. She lay back against the seat for a moment, her eyes closed.

      "That's you again," she murmured. "This other—wasn't."

      "Please, Pat! Don't refer to it,—not ever."

      "But it wasn't you, Nick. It was just the strain of that narrow escape. I don't hold it against you."

      "You're—Lord,

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