Part 24

He looked at the startled, gray eyes so earnestly fixed on his. The sweet mouth quivered a little--just a little--or he thought it did.

"No," he replied, with a slight catch in his voice, "I don't believe it's going to fall."

"Perhaps you had better not move around very much in it. Be careful, I beg of you. You will, won't you, Mr. Vanderdynk?"

"Please don't let it bother you," he said, stepping toward her impulsively.

"Oh, don't, don't move!" she exclaimed. "You really must keep perfectly still. Won't you promise me you will keep perfectly still?"

"I'll promise you anything," he said a little wildly.

Neither seemed to notice that he had overdone it.

She drew her chair as close as it would go to the grille and leaned against it.

"You will keep up your courage, won't you?" she asked anxiously.

"Certainly. By the way, how far is it to the b-basement?"

She turned quite white for an instant, then:

"I think I'd better go and ring up the police."

"No! A thousand times no! I couldn't stand that."

"But the car might--drop before----"

"Better decently dead than publicly paragraphed.... I haven't the least idea that this thing is going to drop.... Anyway, it's worth it," he added, rather vaguely.

"Worth--what?" she asked, looking into his rather winning, brown eyes.

"Being here," he said, looking into her engaging gray ones.

After a startling silence she said calmly: "Will you promise me not to move or shake the car till I return?"

"You won't be very long, will you?"

"Not--very," she replied faintly.

She walked into the library, halted in the center of the room, hands clasped behind her. Her heart was beating like a trip hammer.

"I might as well face it," she said to herself; "he is--by far--the most thoroughly attractive man I have ever seen.... I--I don't know what's the matter," she added piteously.... "if it's that machine William made I can't help it; I don't care any longer; I wish----"

A sharp crack from the landing sent her out there in a hurry, pale and frightened.

"Something snapped somewhere," explained the young man with forced carelessness, "some unimportant splinter gave way and the thing slid down an inch or two."

"D-do you think----"

"No, I don't. But it's perfectly fine of you to care."

"C-care? I'm a little frightened, of course.... Anybody would be.... Oh, I wish you were out and p-perfectly safe." "If I thought you could ever really care what became of a man like me----"

Killian Van K. Vanderdynk's aristocratic senses began gyrating; he grasped the bars, the back of his hand brushed against hers, and the momentary contact sent a shock straight through the scion of that celebrated race.