Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/310

290 walks down the mountain in the moonlight—or even on the hotel balcony." She smiled gaily at Magee. "Perhaps to-morrow, too, the word might mean such rapturous things to me. But to-night—life is too real and earnest to-night. Service—Professor Bolton was right—service is often romance. It may mean the discovery of a serum—it may mean so cruel a thing as the blighting of another's life romance." She gazed steadily at the stolid Cargan. "It may mean putting an end forever to those picturesque parades past the window of the little room on Main Street—the room where the boys can always find the mayor of Reuton."

Still she gazed steadily into Cargan's eyes. And with an amused smile the mayor gazed back.

"You wouldn't be so cruel as that," he assured her easily; "a nice attractive girl like you."

The dinner was at an end; without a word the sly little professor rose from the table and hurriedly ascended the stairs. Mr. Magee watched him disappear, and resolved to follow quickly on his heels. But first he paused to give his own version of the word under discussion.