Page:Vance--The rass bowl.djvu/180

 three-quarters of an hour she demonstrated herself conclusively a person of amazing resource, developing with admirable ingenuity a campaign planned on the spur of a chance observation. The gentle mannered and self-sufficient crook was taken captive before he realized it, however willing he may have been. Enmeshed in a hundred uncomprehended subtleties, he basked, purring, the while she insinuated herself beneath his guard and stripped him of his entire armament of cunning, vigilance, invention, suspicion, and distrust.

He relinquished them without a sigh, barely conscious of the spoliation. After all, she was of his trade, herself mired with guilt; she would never dare betray him, the consequences to herself would be so dire.

Besides, patently,—almost too much so,—she admired him. He was her hero. Had she not more than hinted that such was the case, that his example, his exploits, had fired her to emulation—however weakly feminine? … He saw her before him, dainty, alluring, yielding, yet leading him on: alto-