Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/21

 charmed precincts—something none too easy to a stranger without credentials.

He neared it, I say, and with some trepidation, becoming to a man of emotions who is going to stake his all on a single throw,—which was what O'Rourke proposed to do,—eying the exterior aspect of the place with a wonder as to what changes might have occurred within, in the few years that he had been a stranger to its walls.

While yet some distance away he observed the door opening with circumspection. For a single second the figure of a departing patron was outlined in the light; then the doors swung to, swiftly and noiselessly.

O'Rourke remarked, without great interest, that it was a young man who was leaving so early in the night; a man who stood hesitant at the foot of the steps, glancing up and down the street irresolutely, as one who knows not whither to go.

In a moment, however, he seemed to have made up his mind, and started off toward O'Rourke, walking briskly, but without any spring in his step, holding his head high, his shoulders back. There was a suggestion of the military in his bearing.

As he passed, O'Rourke noted the tightly compressed lips, the hopeless, lack-luster eyes of the man. "Cleaned out—poor chap!" he sympathized.

Simultaneously the doors open again, briefly; a second man emerged, ran hastily down the steps, and started up the street as though in pursuit of the first. This man was of an uncommon and distinguished appearance; large and heavily built, yet lithe and active; with a fat-cheeked face, bearded sparsely; thick lips showing red through the dark hair; a thin, chiseled nose, set between eyes pouched, yet bright and kindly, the whole surmounted by a forehead