Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/142

 of one hand against the fingers of the other as if shaking off the last hateful particle which might have adhered. At length he sat erect once more. His hands were off the table entirely and folded across his chest, fingers clasping the muscles of the arms tightly as if he restrained a mighty impulse. And yet his eyes would not give up their fixity. They were glued to that shining cone of coin. The struggle in his half-savage breast was still on.

How fierce that conflict was Harrington realized when he saw Adam John's eyes suddenly shiny with tears. Tears may come once or twice in a lifetime to the eyes of an adult Indian. Adam John's eyes since infancy had not been wet save from enemy gas. Now, bright from their briny bath, they found the eyes of Henry Harrington, but not with a look of grateful surrender. It was a glance of loving reproach they gave, after which the stiff lips of Adam John labored his look into words: "You—you make temptation for me, Lieutenant!"

Temptation!

The combination of that glance, those simple words, the tone in which they were uttered, cut through Harrington like a knife. All at once he saw what he was doing—that he was sccking vulgarly to lure this young man away from an ideal which, if wrong, was one that he ought to be persuaded out of, reasoned, guided out of—but not sordidly bribed out of. It filled him with a sudden sense of shame. But still his speech lagged behind his thought.

"Why, I'm showing you how much money is being offered for your land," he argued.

"Is that all you do?" gasped Adam weakly, and