Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/52

38 But I must say the game has always appealed to me as much as the loot. I might be compared to a big-game hunter: I liked the stalk and I liked the bag. Most men have got a plundering instinct—and some women, too. Soldiers loot when they get the chance."

"From an enemy," said Miss Dalghren.

"Society and I were enemies," I answered. "Society declared war on me when I was a helpless little kiddy. I felt, when I grew up, that it owed me a lot. So I sailed in to collect."

Edith looked at me with a little smile.

"But the war is over now, Frank?" she asked.

"Yes," said I. "The war is over and peace is signed, and you may be sure that I shall never break it. You and your husband have paid Society's war debt to me in full and we are square. From now on I live within the law."

"Bravo!" said John. His hand went out to the decanter in a careless sort of way, but I noticed again that worried, furtive look in his eyes. Edith saw it, too, though she pretended not to, and a shadow rested on her lovely face. It passed quickly, but it struck me suddenly that here, perhaps, was the explanation for the note of sadness that showed in all of her work.

We were to go to the Opera that night and at dinner Edith wore her magnificent pearl necklace, the one that Ivan had told me about. They were uncommon pearls, but it struck me that Miss Dalghren's were even finer. The girl noticed my eyes resting on them and asked, with a smile:

"Aren't they beauties?"