Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/95

Rh Léontine's eyes narrowed. Her face was like alabaster.

"Indeed?" says she softly. "And how long do you think that our honest little citizen would be apt to live after playing such a joke?" She smiled. "I think that he would go straight to Heaven, where he belongs."

"Not until he had sent an old pal or two to the other place," I answered. "M. de Maxeville would probably find his handsome head under the guillotine—where it belongs."

Léontine took a swift step forward and her hand fell on my wrist like a cold, steel bracelet—and I know how that feels.

"Frank," she whispered, "don't joke on such vital matters. It's only a joke, of course—but it is not a nice one."

"Well then," said I, "it's not a joke—and the sooner you get that through your pretty, curly pate the better for all hands."

She dropped my wrist and stepped back, her eyes wide and filled with a genuine look of horror. By George, my friend, you'd have taken her for the President of a Benevolent Society listening to a proposition to ditch a trainload of preachers.

"I don't believe it!" she cried. "I will not believe it! What, betray your former pals to the police. You, Frank?"

I began to feel my patience slipping her cogs.

"Yes," I snarled, "I. What's the matter with you, girl? Haven't you got good sense? You make me sick! Why, just look at it; the other night I had a good-enough job all done down there at the