Ronicky Doone Part 18

"I hardly know him. How can I say?"

"It's sure an easy thing to say. You've wrote to him. You've had letters from him. You've sent him your picture, and he's sent you his, and you've seen him on the street. Lady, you sure know Bill Gregg, and what do you think of him?"

"I think--"

"Is he a square sort of gent?"

"Y-yes."

"The kind you'd trust?"

"Yes, but--"

"Is he the kind that would stick to the girl he loved and take care of her, through thick and thin?"

"You mustn't talk like this," said Caroline Smith, but her voice trembled, and her eyes told him to go on.

"I'm going back and tell Bill Gregg that, down in your heart, you love him just about the same as he loves you!"

"Oh," she asked, "would you say a thing like that? It isn't a bit true."

"I'm afraid that's the way I see it. When I tell him that, you can lay to it that old Bill will let loose all holds and start for you, and, if they's ten brick walls and twenty gunmen in between, it won't make no difference. He'll find you, or die trying."

Before he finished she was clinging to his arm.

"If you tell him, you'll be doing a murder, Ronicky Doone. What he'll face will be worse than twenty gunmen."

"The gent that smiles, eh?"

"Yes, John Mark. No, no, I didn't mean--"

"But you did, and I knew it, too. It's John Mark that's between you and Bill. I seen you in the street, when you were talking to poor Bill, look back over your shoulder at that devil standing in the window of this house."

"Don't call him that!"

"D'you know of one drop of kindness in his nature, lady?"

"Are we quite alone?"

"Not a soul around."

"Then he is a devil, and, being a devil, no ordinary man has a chance against him--not a chance, Ronicky Doone. I don't know what you did in the house, but I think you must have outfaced him in some way. Well, for that you'll pay, be sure! And you'll pay with your life, Ronicky. Every minute, now, you're in danger of your life. You'll keep on being in danger, until he feels that he has squared his account with you. Don't you see that if I let Bill Gregg come near me--"

"Then Bill will be in danger of this same wolf of a man, eh? And, in spite of the fact that you like Bill--"

"Ah, yes, I do!"

"That you love him, in fact."

"Why shouldn't I tell you?" demanded the girl, breaking down suddenly.

"I do love him, and I can never see him to tell him, because I dread John Mark."

"Rest easy," said Ronicky, "you'll see Bill, or else he'll die trying to get to you."

"If you're his friend--"

"I'd rather see him dead than living the rest of his life, plumb unhappy."

She shook her head, arguing, and so they reached the corner of Beekman Place again and turned into it and went straight toward the house opposite that of John Mark. Still the girl argued, but it was in a whisper, as if she feared that terrible John Mark might overhear.

In the home of John Mark, that calm leader was still with Ruth Tolliver.

They had gone down to the lower floor of the house, and, at his request, she sat at the piano, while Mark sat comfortably beyond the sphere of the piano light and watched her.

"You're thinking of something else," he told her, "and playing abominably."

"I'm sorry."

"You ought to be," he said. "It's bad enough to play poorly for someone who doesn't know, but it's torture to play like that for me."

He spoke without violence, as always, but she knew that he was intensely angry, and that familiar chill pa.s.sed through her body. It never failed to come when she felt that she had aroused his anger.

"Why doesn't Caroline come back?" she asked at length.

"She's letting him talk himself out, that's all. Caroline's a clever youngster. She knows how to let a man talk till his throat is dry, and then she'll smile and tell him that it's impossible to agree with him.

Yes, there are many possibilities in Caroline."

"You think Ronicky Doone is a gambler?" she asked, harking back to what he had said earlier.

"I think so," answered John Mark, and again there was that tightening of the muscles around his mouth. "A gambler has a certain way of masking his own face and looking at yours, as if he were dragging your thoughts out through your eyes; also, he's very cool; he belongs at a table with the cards on it and the stakes high."

The door opened. "Here's young Rose. He'll tell us the truth of the matter. Has she come back, Rose?"

The young fellow kept far back in the shadow, and, when he spoke, his voice was uncertain, almost to the point of trembling. "No," he managed to say, "she ain't come back, chief."

Mark stared at him for a moment and then slowly opened a cigarette case and lighted a smoke. "Well," he said, and his words were far more violent than the smooth voice, "well, idiot, what did she do?"

"She done a fade-away, chief, in the house across the street. Went in with that other gent."

"He took her by force?" asked John Mark.

"Nope. She slipped in quick enough and all by herself. He went in last."

"d.a.m.nation!" murmured Mark. "That's all, Rose."

His follower vanished through the doorway and closed the door softly after him. John Mark stood up and paced quietly up and down the room. At length he turned abruptly on the girl. "Good night. I have business that takes me out."

"What is it?" she asked eagerly.