Page:Keeban (IA keeban00balm).pdf/288

 at the Flamingo Feather that night she had stabbed at her partner, Keeban!

Sometimes, since, I had doubted the authenticity of my own witnessing that night; I wondered if, actually, she had tried, in that sudden, swift dart of the dagger, to kill Keeban, her partner. Now I wondered that no longer.

She came in smiling; but her smile was too like Doris's when she now smiled at me. For a moment I thought that Shirley was with us; she, also, was to be a guest of the glass room. Then I realized that this was not so. She had come only to see us entertained within the glass. I realized that it was for her we had been waiting. She had come but not of her own will. She had been brought to see this entertainment which was planned for her.

I got a glimpse of Keeban's face; and there I saw a leer which seemed to say:

"You stabbed at me. I let you get away with it. But watch your step. Now see what I can do."

She kept on smiling. She looked at Doris but didn't speak. She didn't even nod at Doris, indeed; and Doris took no heed of her. She gazed at me, did Shirley Scofield,—Christina. And she smiled at me as she had at Keeban, and she