Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/17

Rh like you for it. I like you a mighty lot. And I want to make life easier for you. I want—"

At that I cut him short.

"How are you going to make life easier for me?" I suddenly and shrilly demanded, with Caution no longer standing there and plucking me by the sleeve. I'd seen enough of the world to know when a situation such as this had become hopeless. And in my heart of hearts I realized that I'd reached my Rubicon, and that I had to cross it.

For a moment or two there was no response to that challenge of mine. Then we both rose from our chairs, slowly and deliberately. It was almost ridiculous. You may have noticed two pullets do much the same thing, two chicken-run combatants coming slowly up together and continuing to eye each other as they go circling slowly about with their neck- feathers all ruffled up.

"Don't you think," Big Ben quietly yet ponderously asked me as he rounded his desk-end, "don't you think love can always make it that way?"

It made me gasp. And as I backed away from the big hand which he reached out toward my shoulder I saw, as clear as daylight, the cowardly advantage he was taking of his position.