Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/14

4 false front of cynicism, the same as bald-headed men hide their barren bumps of veneration by festooning them with side-fringes from below the timber-line. I prided myself on knowing the world, and its shams. But no woman, I've concluded, can be sure of any man's character until she's seen and studied him for half a lifetime, and then, like the poor old philosopher in Pisgah Sights, the light of wisdom dawns on her only when they start lettering her tombstone.

"I'm trying to make you understand," explained Big Ben, in his grim and ponderous meekness. "For I may as well tell you now, straight out, Baddie, that you've got me beat!"

"Got you beat!" And I echoed that odious phrase in a helpless sort of gasp, for I saw my position in that office suddenly blowing up like a pink-and-blue circus-balloon. And that position had grown into something more than a mere habit with me. It had become a necessity. It held me up in the world, the same as a nursery "walker" holds up a child still uncertain as to the use of its legs.

"You're different, of course," continued the heavy-jawed man in the swivel chair. "And that's what I like about you. You're—"

"Don't!" I said, trying to keep him from notic-