Page:The Van Roon (IA thevanroon00snaiiala).pdf/114

 *girl with the geniality of one who owns a province. Then suddenly she half turned, and her merry glance, assisted by a Miss Banksian stick-eyeglass was trained full upon the Hoodoo. "What a delicious monster!" The voice had quite a Brahms trill in it, not that June had ever heard of Brahms. "It reminds one of Edgar Allan Poe or the Grand Guignol."

Unabashed by culture, William stood to his full height. June could only marvel at his coolness.

"So Oriental. So grotesque. Makes one think of Ali Baba and the Cave of the Forty Robbers. Very valuable, of course?"

"No, I wouldn't exactly call it valuable." June hardly knew whether to admire or to deplore this candour. "And it takes up a lot of room, and absorbs a lot of light. Almost needs the British Museum, as you might say, to show it to advantage."

Again the Brahms trill, as the eye of the Super-girl travelled from the Hoodoo to William. "Those fearful eyes and those grinning jaws studded with crocodile's teeth make it look absolutely alive. And it's so perfectly hideous that one feels sure there must be a curse on it."

"Mr. Gedge declares there is."

"Really?" The eyes, the blue eyes of the Super-girl grew round and merry. "I'd love to have a thing with a curse on it—if it's a real one?"

"Mr. Gedge would part with it for a very reasonable sum I feel sure," said William, with a judicious air that June admired the more for being hardly able to credit it in him.

With the casual air so becoming to riches, the young woman asked the price.