Chapter Thirteen. 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."
