Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/340

320 spent behind glass, how the glass of limestone mansions, and well-warmed landaulets, and softly-cushioned limousines, must have sheltered her and shut her off from the roughening and strengthening winds of the world. And as I thought of her and her Michael I couldn't keep a wave of pity for poor Wendy Washburn from sweeping through me.

"And Mike—I mean Michael," I said, perhaps with malice aforethought, "how does he feel about it?"

"If he loves me:, it's only for me, myself. It's for my own sake. It's not for what I may have!" That, I remembered, didn't altogether sound like Pinky McClone. Pinky, plainly, was playing for big stakes, and the worldly-wise Wendy Washburn, it was plain, was not altogether ignorant of that fact.

"He risked his life for me," my emotional young companion was reiterating. "And that's more than those namby-pamby chocolate-fudge men I've always known would ever do! It's more than those milk-and-water dinner-dance boys who can only talk about musical-comedy stars would ever do!"

I was beginning to see a little more light, so much more light, in fact, that it brought on a tendency to make me squint.