_Doone Wins_
A servant answered the bell almost at once. "Tell Miss Smith that
she's wanted in Miss Tolliver's room," said Mark, and, when the
servant disappeared, he began pacing up and down the room. Now and
then he cast a sharp glance to the side and scrutinized the face
of Ronicky Doone. With Ruth's permission, the latter had lighted a
cigarette and was smoking it in bland enjoyment. Again the leader
paused directly before the girl, and, with his feet spread and his
head bowed in an absurd Napoleonic posture, he considered every
feature of her face. The uncertain smile, which came trembling on her
face, elicited no response from Mark.
She dreaded him, Ronicky saw, as a slave dreads a cruel master. Still
she had a certain affection for him, partly as the result of many
benefactions, no doubt, and partly from long acquaintance; and, above
all, she respected his powers of mind intensely. The play of emotion
in her face--fear, anger, suspicion--as John Mark paced up and down
before her, was a study.
With a secret satisfaction Ronicky Doone saw that her glances
continually sought him, timidly, curiously. All vanity aside, he had
dropped a bomb under the feet of John Mark, and some day the bomb
might explode.
There was a tap at the door, it opened and Caroline Smith entered in
a dressing gown. She smiled brightly at Ruth and wanly at John Mark,
then started at the sight of the stranger.
"This," said John Mark, "is Ronicky Doone."
The Westerner rose and bowed.
"He has come," said John Mark, "to try to persuade you to go out for a
stroll with him, so that he can talk to you about that curious fellow,
Bill Gregg. He is going to try to soften your heart, I believe, by
telling you all the inconveniences which Bill Gregg has endured to
find you here. But he will do his talking for himself. Just why he has
to take you out of the house, at night, before he can talk to you is,
I admit, a mystery to me. But let him do the persuading."
Ronicky Doone turned to his host, a cold gleam in his eyes. His case
had been presented in such a way as to make his task of persuasion
almost impossible. Then he turned back and looked at the girl. Her
face was a little pale, he thought, but perfectly composed.
"I don't know Bill Gregg," she said simply. "Of course, I'm glad to
talk to you, Mr. Doone, but why not here?"
John Mark covered a smile of satisfaction, and the girl looked at him,
apparently to see if she had spoken correctly. It was obvious that the
leader was pleased, and she glanced back at Ronicky, with a flush of
pleasure.
"I'll tell you why I can't talk to you in here," said Ronicky gently.
"Because, while you're under the same roof with this gent with the
sneer"--he turned and indicated Mark, sneering himself as he did
so--"you're not yourself. You don't have a halfway chance to think for
yourself. You feel him around you and behind you and beside you
every minute, and you keep wondering not what you really feel about
anything, but what John Mark wants you to feel. Ain't that the
straight of it?"
She glanced apprehensively at John Mark, and, seeing that he did not
move to resent this assertion, she looked again with wide-eyed wonder
at Ronicky Doone.
"You see," said the man of the sneer to Caroline Smith, "that our
friend from the West has a child-like faith in my powers of--what
shall I say--hypnotism!"
A faint smile of agreement flickered on her lips and went out. Then
she regarded Ronicky, with an utter lack of emotion.
"If I could talk like him," said Ronicky Doone gravely, "I sure
wouldn't care where I had to do the talking; but I haven't any smooth
lingo--I ain't got a lot of words all ready and handy. I'm a pretty
simple-minded sort of a gent, Miss Smith. That's why I want to get you
out of this house, where I can talk to you alone."
She paused, then shook her head.
"As far as going out with me goes," went on Ronicky, "well, they's
nothing I can say except to ask you to look at me close, lady, and
then ask yourself if I'm the sort of a gent a girl has got anything to
be afraid about. I won't keep you long; five minutes is all I ask. And
we can walk up and down the street, in plain view of the house, if you
want. Is it a go?"
At least he had broken through the surface crust of indifference. She
was looking at him now, with a shade of interest and sympathy, but she
shook her head.
"I'm afraid--" she began.
"Don't refuse right off, without thinking," said Ronicky. "I've worked
pretty hard to get a chance to meet you, face to face. I busted into
this house tonight like a burglar--"
"Oh," cried the girl, "you're the man--Harry Morgan--" She stopped,
aghast.
"He's the man who nearly killed Morgan," said John Mark.
"Is that against me?" asked Ronicky eagerly. "Is that all against me?
I was fighting for the chance to find you and talk to you. Give me
that chance now."
Obviously she could not make up her mind. It had been curious that
this handsome, boyish fellow should come as an emissary from Bill
Gregg. It was more curious still that he should have had the daring
and the strength to beat Harry Morgan.
"What shall I do, Ruth?" she asked suddenly.
Ruth Tolliver glanced apprehensively at John Mark and then flushed,
but she raised her head bravely. "If I were you, Caroline," she said
steadily, "I'd simply ask myself if I could trust Ronicky Doone. Can
you?"
The girl faced Ronicky again, her hands clasped in indecision and
excitement. Certainly, if clean honesty was ever written in the face
of a man, it stood written in the clear-cut features of Ronicky Doone.
"Yes," she said at last, "I'll go. For five minutes--only in the
street--in full view of the house."
There was a hard, deep-throated exclamation from John Mark. He rose
and glided across the room, as if to go and vent his anger elsewhere.
But he checked and controlled himself at the door, then turned.
"You seem to have won, Doone. I congratulate you. When he's talking to
you, Caroline, I want you constantly to remember that--"
"Wait!" cut in Ronicky sharply. "She'll do her own thinking, without
your help."
John Mark bowed with a sardonic smile, but his face was colorless.
Plainly he had been hard hit. "Later on," he continued, "we'll see
more of each other, I expect--a great deal more, Doone."
"It's something I'll sure wait for," said Ronicky savagely. "I got
more than one little thing to talk over with you, Mark. Maybe about
some of them we'll have to do more than talking. Good-by. Lady, I'll
be waiting for you down by the front door of the house."
Caroline Smith nodded, flung one frightened and appealing glance to
Ruth Tolliver for direction, then hurried out to her room to dress.
Ronicky Doone turned back to Ruth.
"In my part of the country," he said simply, "they's some gents we
know sort of casual, and some gents we have for friends. Once in a
while you bump into somebody that's so straight and square-shooting
that you'd like to have him for a partner. If you were out West, lady,
and if you were a man--well, I'd pick you for a partner, because
you've sure played straight and square with me tonight."
He turned, hesitated, and, facing her again, caught up her hand,
touched it to his lips, then hurried past John Mark and through the
doorway. They could hear his rapid footfalls descending the stairs,
and John Mark was thoughtful indeed. He was watching Ruth Tolliver,
as she stared down at her hand. When she raised her head and met the
glance of the leader she flushed slowly to the roots of her hair.
"Yes," muttered John Mark, still thoughtfully and half to himself,
"there's really true steel in him. He's done more against me in one
half hour than any other dozen men in ten years."