Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/169

Rh "You've had about enough of that!"

Again the heavy emphasis of soft arms, and he wavered. He would go—but the broad stairs announced the approach of someone.

"It's the governor—quick—in there!"

The knob of the door turned behind Carlotta, and the ceiling lights were snapped off, leaving the room in half darkness as his father entered.

He seemed to be concerned for his son, wanting to say something—he didn't quite know what. He felt still more worried when he saw the unusual débris in the tray, and the flask which Phil had neglected to hide.

"That won't help, my boy, it never does. I'm sorry things turned out so badly—sorrier than I can say. But, cheer up, Sally'll come round on time. The whole thing's so romantic that it naturally appealed to her—all girls are that way."

"Maybe," the boy replied, "but you're wrong about her—she won't get the chance."

A sharp breeze, heralding the return of the storm, which had subsided for a while, blew through the curtains, knocking Sally's picture from the bureau. Renewed rumbles of thunder followed, and fitful spurts of lightning.

In the uncertain atmosphere of lamplight, lightning flash, and whiskey haze, commingled, through which Phil's brain was none too buoyantly volplaning, a picture on the wall opposite held him spellbound.

By day it was only a dingy oil in a tarnished frame, the canvas fissured by Time with tiny cracks like a maze of spider webs. But now it was wonderfully lifelike. On a