Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/307

Rh seeing her lovely face in the shadows, now tender, now resolute, now mocking. Doubtless he thought of her constantly because his freedom of action was limited. He hadn't diversion enough. Books and fiddling, these carried him but halfway through the boredom. Where was she? Daily he had called her by telephone; no answer. The Jap shook his head; the slangy boy in the hit shook his.

She was a thoroughbred, even if she had been born of middle-class parentage. He laughed bitterly. Middle class. A homeless, countryless derelict, and he had the impudence to revert to comparisons that no longer existed in this topsy-turvy old world. He was an upstart. The final curtain had dropped between him and his world, and he was still thinking in the ancient make-up. Middle class! He was no better than a troglodyte, set down in a new wilderness.

He heard the curtain rings slither on the pole. Believing the intruder to be Kuroki he turned belligerently. And there she stood—the girl herself! The poise of her reminded him of the Winged Victory in the Louvre. Where there had been a cup of champagne in his veins circumstance now poured a magnum.

"You!" he cried.

"What has happened? Where are you going in those clothes?" demanded Kitty.

"I am running away—for an hour or so."