As they went back, toward Nelly's table, where Jack Landis was trying to appear carelessly at ease, the face of Donnegan was pale. One might have thought that excitement and fear caused his pallor; but as a matter of fact it was in him an unfailing sign of happiness and success. Landis had manners enough to rise as they approached. He found himself being presented to the smaller man. He heard the cool, precise voice of Donnegan acknowledging the introduction; and then the red-headed man went back to his table; and Jack Landis was alone with Nelly Lebrun again.
He scowled at her, and she tried to look repentant, but since she could not keep the dancing light out of her eyes, she compromised by looking steadfastly down at the table. Which convinced Landis that she was thinking of her late partner. He made a great effort, swallowed, and was able to speak smoothly enough.
"Looked as if you were having a pretty good time with that--tramp."
The color in her cheeks was anger; Landis took it for shame.
"He dances beautifully," she replied.
"Yeh; he's pretty smooth. Take a gent like that, it's hard for a girl to see through him."
"Let's not talk about him, Jack."
"All right. Is he going to dance with you again?"
"I promised him the third dance after this."
For a time Landis could not trust his voice. Then: "Kind of sorry about that. Because I'll be going home before then."
At this she raised her eyes for the first time. He was astonished and a little horrified to see that she was not in the least flustered, but very angry.
"You'll go home before I have a chance for that dance?" she asked. "You're acting like a two-year-old, Jack. You are!"
He flushed. Burning would be too easy a death for Donnegan.
"He's making a laughingstock out of me; look around the room!"
"Nobody's thinking about you at all, Jack. You're just self-conscious."
Of course, it was pouring acid upon an open wound. But she was past the point of caution.
"Maybe they ain't," said Landis, controlling his rage. "I don't figure that I amount to much. But I rate myself as high as a skunk like him!"
It may have been a smile that she gave him. At any rate, he caught the glint of teeth, and her eyes were as cold as steel points. If she had actually defended the stranger she would not have infuriated Landis so much.
"Well, what does he say about himself?"
"He says frankly that he's a vagrant."
"And you don't believe him?"
She did not speak.
"Makin' a play for sympathy. Confound a man like that, I say!"
Still she did not answer; and now Landis became alarmed.
"D'you really like him, Nelly?"
"I liked him well enough to introduce him to you, Jack."
"I'm sorry I talked so plain if you put it that way," he admitted heavily. "I didn't know you picked up friends so fast as all that!" He could not avoid adding this last touch of the poison point.
His back was to Donnegan, and consequently the girl, facing him, could look straight across the room at the red-headed man. She allowed herself one brief glance, and she saw that he was sitting with his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand, looking fixedly at her. It was the gaze of one who forgets all else and wraps himself in a dream. Other people in the room were noting that changeless stare and the whisper buzzed more and more loudly, but Donnegan had forgotten the rest of the world, it seemed. It was a very cunning piece of acting, not too much overdone, and once more the heart of Nelly Lebrun fluttered.
She remembered that in spite of his frankness he had not talked with insolent presumption to her. He had merely answered her individual questions with an astonishing, childlike frankness. He had laid his heart before her, it seemed. And now he sat at a distance looking at her with the white, intense face of one who sees a dream.
Nelly Lebrun was recalled by the heavy breathing of Jack Landis and she discovered that she had allowed her eyes to rest too long on the red-headed stranger. She had forgotten; her eyes had widened; and even Jack Landis was able to look into her mind and see things that startled him. For the first time he sensed that this was more than a careless flirtation. And he sat stiffly at the table, looking at her and through her with a fixed smile. Nelly, horrified, strove to cover her tracks.
"You're right, Jack," she said. "I--I think there was something brazen in the way he tagged you. And--let's go home together!"
Too late. The mind of Landis was not oversharp, but now jealousy gave it a point. He nodded his assent, and they got up, but there was no increase in his color. She read as plain as day in his face that he intended murder this night and Nelly was truly frightened.
So she tried different tactics. All the way to the substantial little house which Lebrun had built at a little distance from the gambling hall, she kept up a running fire of steady conversation. But when she said good night to him, his face was still set. She had not deceived him. When he turned, she saw him go back into the night with long strides, and within half an hour she knew, as clearly as if she were remembering the picture instead of foreseeing it, that Jack and Donnegan would face each other gun in hand on the floor of Milligan's dance hall.
Still, she was not foolish enough to run after Jack, take his arm, and make a direct appeal. It would be too much like begging for Donnegan, and even if Jack forgave her for this interest in his rival, she had sense enough to feel that Donnegan himself never would. Something, however, must be done to prevent the fight, and she took the straightest course.
She went as fast as a run would carry her straight behind the intervening houses and came to the back entrance to the gaming hall. There she entered and stepped into the little office of her father. Black Lebrun was not there. She did not want him. In his place there sat the Pedlar and Joe Rix; they were members of Lord Nick's chosen crew, and since Nick's temporary alliance with Lebrun for the sake of plundering Jack Landis, Nick's men were Nelly's men. Indeed, this was a formidable pair. They were the kind of men about whom many whispers and no facts circulate: and yet the facts are far worse than the whispers. It was said that Joe Rix, who was a fat little man with a great aversion to a razor and a pair of shallow, pale blue eyes, was in reality a merciless fiend. He was; and he was more than that, if there be a stronger superlative. If Lord Nick had dirty work to be done, there was the man who did it with a relish. The Pedlar, on the other hand, was an exact opposite. He was long, lean, raw-boned, and prodigiously strong in spite of his lack of flesh. He had vast hands, all loose skin and outstanding tendons; he had a fleshless face over which his smile was capable of extending limitlessly. He was the sort of a man from whom one would expect shrewdness, some cunning, stubbornness, a dry humor, and many principles. All of which, except the last, was true of the Pedlar.
There was this peculiarity about the Pedlar. In spite of his broad grins and his wise, bright eyes, none, even of Lord Nick's gang, extended a friendship or familiarity toward him. When they spoke of the Pedlar they never used his name. They referred to him as "him" or they indicated him with gestures. If he had a fondness for any living creature it was for fat Joe Rix.
Yet on seeing this ominous pair, Nelly Lebrun cried out softly in delight. She ran to them, and dropped a hand on the bony shoulder of the Pedlar and one on the plump shoulder of Joe Rix, whose loose flesh rolled under her finger tips.
"It's Jack Landis!" she cried. "He's gone to Milligan's to fight the new man. Stop him!"
"Donnegan?" said Joe, and did not rise.
"Him?" said the Pedlar, and moistened his broad lips like one on the verge of starvation.
"Are you going to sit here?" she cried. "What will Lord Nick say if he finds out you've let Jack get into a fight?"
"We ain't nursin' mothers," declared the Pedlar. "But I'd kind of like to look on!"
And he rose. Unkinking joint after joint, straightening his legs, his back, his shoulders, his neck, he soared up and up until he stood a prodigious height. The girl controlled a shudder of disgust.
"Joe!" she appealed.
"You want us to clean up Donnegan?" he asked, rising, but without interest in his voice.
To his surprise, she slipped back to the door and blocked it with her outcast arms.
"Not a hair of his head!" she said fiercely. "Swear that you won't harm him, boys!"
"What the devil!" ejaculated Joe, who was a blunt man in spite of his fat. "You want us to keep Jack from fightin', but you don't want us to hurt the other gent. What you want? Hogtie 'em both?"
"Yes, yes; keep Jack out of Milligan's; but for heaven's sake don't try to put a hand on Donnegan."
"Why not?"
"For your sakes; he'd kill you, Joe!"
At this they both gaped in unison, and as one man they drawled in vast admiration: "Good heavens!"
"But go, go, go!" cried the girl.
And she shoved them through the door and into the night.
