Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/292

272 "And when I have got it, and have given it to you—if I do," he continued, "what then?"

"Then," she answered, "I must go away-very quickly. And no one must know, or they will try to stop me."

"And after that?"

"The deluge," she laughed without mirth.

Up above them the great trees of Baldpate Mountain waved their black arms constantly as though sparring with the storm. At the foot of the buried roadway they could see the lamps of Upper Asquewan Falls; under those lamps prosaic citizens were hurrying home with the supper groceries through the night. And not one of those citizens was within miles of guessing that up on the balcony of Baldpate Inn a young man had seized a young woman s hand, and was saying wildly: "Beautiful girl—I love you."

Yet that was exactly what Billy Magee was doing. The girl had turned her face away.

"You've known me just two days," she said.

"If I can care this much in two days," he said, think—but that's old, isn t it? Sometime soon I'm going to say to you: 'Whose girl are you?'