Page:The Popular Magazine v72 n1 (1924-04-20).djvu/23

 She did not answer immediately but leaned over the wall and threw pebbles that some one had left on its top into the quiet waters of the lagoon below.

“If I could” he began, and then stopped as she turned toward him with a tiny gesture. Her face seemed dim and pathetic in the light of the stars as he bent toward her.

“No,” she said slowly, “I don't think you could help. And, furthermore, I don't think I should want you to do so. It might get you into trouble. I'm rather a—rather a reckless person, I'm afraid. If I weren't a little reckless I doubt if I should tell you what I'm going to; which is that I'm over here to commit a burglary, and, if the police don't stop me, I'm going to do it, too!”

“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “Commit a burglary? You don't mean that literally, do you?”

“I do! Word of honor! That's what I'm here for, and I've come across the Atlantic to do it,” she asserted.

The nervous laugh with which she broke the spell of his astonishment perplexed him. He could not but be certain that she was in earnest about the projected burglary, yet could not surmise why on earth she should have such a plan, or why, even then, she should in a confidential moment confide in him. That wasn't the sort of thing that burglars, as he had always heard of them, did. It certainly wasn't professional or according to the traditions of the craft.

“Well,” he said at last, “if you're out to commit a burglary you can count me in on it. I'm inexperienced, but of this I'm sure—that if you desire something fervently enough to steal it I'm game to help grab it, whatever it is!”

“You think I'm joking,” she retorted. “Well, I'm not! There's something over there in Venice that I want. I ought to have it. It belongs to me. The only way I can get it is to steal it and—Pietro is all right, but he's such an impetuous, uncertain, wildfire sort of helper that I'm afraid he will get everything mixed up, and so I'd like to have your advice. You're the only one I've met over here whom I can feel I can trust. You seem so sane, so calm, and so capable, and Oh, to tell you the truth my heart is set on this thing!”

“On this burglary?” he asked, smiling a little in the darkness now that her barriers of reserve had been thrown down.

“Yes—for I suppose we must call it that,” she replied.

“Isn't—isn't there any other and more legitimate way of getting whatever it is that you covet?” he asked, still inclined to accept her words as a whim or jest.

“No, there isn't!” she said bitterly. “If there were, I wouldn't steal it. But I've just got to get it. That's all there is to that!”

She seemed to have forgotten him in the minutes that passed as she still leaned over the wall and looked downward upon the wash of the Adriatic that whispered against the base of the old gray walls. He watched her, half amused and wholly imbued with a desire to take her into his arms.

“I've never yet gone into a burglary,” he said at last, whimsically, “without at least knowing what it was that must be stolen. And so, as I've announced my willingness to become a criminal if you are bent on the game, and there's no other way of getting possession, I suggest that you tell me all about it. If you and I have got to steal something, let's steal it right! Ive got to know, haven't I, what it is we're to steal and where it is situated?”

He spoke with the still predominant feeling that this must be some sort of jest, but to his dumfounding she evidently took his words seriously. She made no laughing retort to prolong it, but, still leaning on her elbows over the sea wall said, “An American here whose name is Lemuel Harnway has got a little casket that belongs to my family, and I'm going to get it!”

He was thankful that she was looking abstractedly into the Adriatic when she spoke, for otherwise his start of bewilderment might have been observed. It required a moment for him to adjust himself to such a serious position and adopt a pose. He bent toward her and in the gloom studied the whiteness of her profile, the shadowy shape of her young shoulders and then looked around to collect himself before answering.

“Well,” he asked, feeling that to her at least there was something vital in all this, “if this man Harnway has got something that belongs to you, or your family, why don't you ask him for it?”

“Ask him? Ask a Harnway for anything?” she exclaimed, suddenly turning as if she had been a spring released from position. “I'd rather die than ask a Harnway