Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/23

 Where she fluttered or fell from he scarcely knew. It was somewhere in one of the quieter side-streets, and they were standing face to face, almost, when he looked up and saw her. Had he seen a mermaid over the ship's rail it could not have startled him more. There was no evading the situation; there was no chance of being mistaken. It was Adventure, in answer to his prayer. It was Romance, as he had asked. And he had never so much as clapped eyes on her before. Nor was her face a painted face. There was no betraying cupid-bow streak of carmine on the softly smiling lips. There was no barbaric black gum on the undrooping eye lashes, no tell-tale blue paint on the eyelids. There were no disquieting blandishments, no sidelong and predatory glances, no ensnaring simulation of tender levity. His startled eyes could detect no granite savagery under the velvet of her unconcern. She seemed merely Woman incarnate to him, the sort of woman he had sometimes dreamt about on tropic nights when the Southern Cross swung low to the sky line.

"You are Gustav Lingg," she said quietly, and as plain as day, while his wide eyes still studied every tint and shadow and line of her untroubled face. On that face he seemed to