Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/126

, more and more disturbed and depressed him. But there were many things on which he was still uncertain, and above all things he knew that he must go slow.

The woman confronting him must have seen some flash of doubt on his face, for she caught at his arm with a sudden little movement that was as imploring as it was feminine.

"You don't trust me? You don't believe what I have told you?" she cried in her hurrying, low-toned whisper.

"No! no! It's not that!" McKinnon answered. "But I can't quite see my way out—I can't see what it's all leading to."

"But nothing can happen now, here at sea. And you will understand later. Promise me you'll wait!"

"Yes; but wait for what?"

"Until you are free to act, and you know what I have said is true."

He took a turn up and down the cabin. "Is this paper so important? I mean, isn't this a lot of fuss and feathers about a small thing?"

"It's one of the small things that count in war—and this is war."

Still again he felt the inapposite and insidious appeal of her womanhood. It wound about him and tugged at him, eroding away his self-will, his old-time careless audacity of spirit, like