The Green Mouse Part 13

"I wonder," she mused, "how soon Ferdinand will find a plumber?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

She bent her adorable head, chose a chocolate and offered it to him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Are you not terribly impatient?" she inquired]

"Are you not terribly impatient?" she inquired.

"Not--terribly."

Their glances encountered and she said hurriedly:

"I am sure you must be perfectly furious with everybody in this house.

I--I think it is most amiable of you to behave so cheerfully about it."

"As a matter of fact," he said, "I'm feeling about as cheerful as I ever felt in my life."

"Cooped up in a cage?"

"Exactly."

"Which may fall at any--" The idea was a new one to them both. She leaned forward in sudden consternation. "I never thought of that!" she exclaimed. "You don't think there's any chance of its falling, do you?"

He looked at the startled, gray eyes so earnestly fixed on his. The sweet mouth quivered a little--just a little--or he thought it did.

"No," he replied, with a slight catch in his voice, "I don't believe it's going to fall."

"Perhaps you had better not move around very much in it. Be careful, I beg of you. You will, won't you, Mr. Vanderdynk?"

"Please don't let it bother you," he said, stepping toward her impulsively.

"Oh, don't, don't move!" she exclaimed. "You really must keep perfectly still. Won't you promise me you will keep perfectly still?"

"I'll promise you anything," he said a little wildly.

Neither seemed to notice that he had overdone it.

She drew her chair as close as it would go to the grille and leaned against it.

"You _will_ keep up your courage, won't you?" she asked anxiously.

"Certainly. By the way, how far is it to the b-bas.e.m.e.nt?"

She turned quite white for an instant, then:

"I think I'd better go and ring up the police."

"No! A thousand times no! I couldn't stand that."

"But the car might--drop before----"

"Better decently dead than publicly paragraphed.... I haven't the least idea that this thing is going to drop.... Anyway, it's worth it," he added, rather vaguely.

"Worth--what?" she asked, looking into his rather winning, brown eyes.

"Being here," he said, looking into her engaging gray ones.

After a startling silence she said calmly: "Will you promise me not to move or shake the car till I return?"

"You won't be very long, will you?"

"Not--very," she replied faintly.

She walked into the library, halted in the center of the room, hands clasped behind her. Her heart was beating like a trip hammer.

"I might as well face it," she said to herself; "he is--by far--the most thoroughly attractive man I have ever seen.... I--I _don't_ know what's the matter," she added piteously.... "if it's that machine William made I can't help it; I don't care any longer; I wish----"

A sharp crack from the landing sent her out there in a hurry, pale and frightened.

"Something snapped somewhere," explained the young man with forced carelessness, "some unimportant splinter gave way and the thing slid down an inch or two."

"D-do you think----"

"No, I don't. But it's perfectly fine of you to care."

"C-care? I'm a little frightened, of course.... Anybody would be.... Oh, I wish you were out and p-perfectly safe." "If I thought you could ever really care what became of a man like me----"

Killian Van K. Vanderdynk's aristocratic senses began gyrating; he grasped the bars, the back of his hand brushed against hers, and the momentary contact sent a shock straight through the scion of that celebrated race.

She seated herself abruptly; a delicate color grew, staining her face.

Neither spoke. A long, luminous sunbeam fell across the landing, touching the edge of her hair till it glimmered like bronze afire. The sensitive mouth was quiet, the eyes, very serious, were lifted from time to time, then lowered, thoughtfully, to the clasped fingers on her knee.

Could it be possible? How could it be possible?--with a man she had never before chanced to meet--with a man she had seen for the first time in her life only an hour or so ago! Such things didn't happen outside of short stories. There was neither logic nor common decency in it. Had she or had she not any ordinary sense remaining?

She raised her eyes and looked at the heir of the Vanderdynks.

Of course anybody could see he was unusually attractive--that he had that indefinable something about him which is seldom, if ever, seen outside of fiction or of Mr. Gibson's drawings--perhaps it is entirely confined to them--except in this one very rare case.

Sacharissa's eyes fell.

Another unusual circ.u.mstance was engaging her attention, namely, that his rather remarkable physical perfection appeared to be matched by a breeding quite as faultless, and a sublimity of courage in the face of destruction itself, which----

Sacharissa lifted her gray eyes.

There he stood, suspended over an abyss, smoking a cigarette, bravely forcing himself to an att.i.tude of serene insouciance, while the bas.e.m.e.nt yawned for him! Machine or no machine, how could any girl look upon such miraculous self-control unmoved? _She_ could not. It was natural that a woman should be deeply thrilled by such a spectacle--and William Destyn's machine had nothing to do with it--not a thing! Neither had psychology, nor demonology, nor anything, with wires or wireless. She liked him, frankly. Who wouldn't? She feared for him, desperately. Who wouldn't?

She----