The Penalty Part 12

"If you want to go," he said, "the way's open."

"Can I really go if I want to, and not come back?"

"You really can," he said. "Most things that I want I take, but a man can't take help and comfort unless they are freely given."

She moved slowly forward as if to discover the truth of his statement that the way was open. He made not the least gesture of interference.

When she was between him and the outer door and rather nearer the latter, she turned about sharply.

"What's troubling you?" she asked.

"The fact," he said, and there was a something really charming in the expression of his mouth and eyes, "that though I can give orders to very many people, and be obeyed as a general is obeyed by his soldiers in war times, I have no friend. Fear attracts this person to me, self-interest attracts that person, but there's no one that's held to me by friendship."

"You're only asking me to be your friend?"

"You will be as safe in my house as in the rooms of the Gerry Society."

"If you want me for a friend why did you call me _muck_ just now?"

"I don't want the others to know that we are friends. I want them to think--what they always think."

"How do I know you trust me?"

"Lock the street door," he said; "you're younger than I. It's easier for you to move about."

She locked the door and returned.

"Are you staying," he asked, "through curiosity or friendship?"

"Look here," she said, "it's neither, Can't you guess what ails me?"

"Tell me."

She took his strong, wicked face between her young hands, and bending over kissed him on the forehead. Then she drew back, flaming.

The legless man was touched. "Why?" he asked.

"I don't know. It just came to me," she said. "G.o.d knows I didn't want it to. I guess that's all"

Rose found it hard to control her jumping nerves. A curious thing had happened to her. Having at last wormed her way into the master's confidence, and brought a long piece of play-acting to a successful conclusion, a certain candor and frankness which were natural to her made the thought of divulging what she had already found out, and whatever he might confide to her in the future, exceedingly repugnant.

And she acknowledged with a shiver of revolt that the creature's fascination for her was not altogether a matter of make-believe. She was going to find it very hard to keep a proper perspective and point of view; to continue to regard him as just another "case" and all in the day's work.

"In my house," he said, "you shall do as you please. You're a dear girl, Rose,"

"I feel at home in your house," she said, "and happy."

A cloud gathered in Blizzard's face. "Happiness!" he exclaimed. "There is no such thing--neither for you, nor for me. The world is a torture-chamber, and remember, Rose, we are to be allies; we are to have no secrets from each other."

She shrugged her shoulders. "That was what you said," she complained.

"But have you really shown me any confidence?"

He smiled as upon a wayward child. "You shall know everything that there is to know--when the time comes."

She pouted.

"And what, by the way," he went on, "have _you_ told _me_?"

"I have told you," she answered with dignity, "my one secret."

"The way you feel about me?"

She nodded and blushed. It was going to be a hard lie to keep telling.

"And you've no other secret? Nothing else that you ought to tell me?"

There was more meaning in his voice than in his words, so that for a moment Rose was startled. Was it possible that the man suspected her, and was playing with her as a cat plays with a mouse?

"What else could I possibly have to tell you of any importance?"

"I was joking," said the beggar.

Rose sat at the window of her room looking upward into a night of stars.

She could not sleep. Twice she had heard the legless man pa.s.s her door upon his crutches. Each time he had hesitated, and once, or so she thought, he had laid his hand upon the door-k.n.o.b. She wondered how much of her wakefulness was due to fright; and how much to the excitement of being well launched upon a case of tremendous importance, for the secret service knew that Blizzard was engaged upon a colossal plot of some sort, and just what that was Rose had volunteered, at the risk of her life, and of her honor, to find out.

XII

The next morning, at the appointed hour, Blizzard climbed the stairs to Barbara's studio, knocked, and was admitted. That he was welcome, if only for his head's sake, was at once evident.

"Something told me that _you_ wouldn't fail me," said Barbara.

"You can be quite easy about that," said Blizzard. "I am in the habit of keeping my word."

He climbed to the model's platform and seated himself as upon the previous morning, with a kind of business-like directness.

"Ready when you are," he said.

Barbara withdrew the damp cloths from the clay, looked critically from the bust to the original and back again. "My work," she said, "still looks right to me. But you don't."

Blizzard smiled.

"Yesterday," she said, "you looked as if you were suffering like," she laughed, "like the very devil. To-day you look well fed and contented.

Now that won't do. Try to remember what you were thinking about when I first saw you."

At once, as a fresh slide is placed in a magic-lantern, the legless man's expression of well-being vanished, and that dark tortured look of Satan fallen which had so fired Barbara's imagination, once more possessed his features. Barbara's eyes flashed with satisfaction.

"It wasn't hard for you to remember what you were thinking about, was it?" she said.