The Safety Curtain | Page 5

should," said Merryon, moodily.
"I do," said the Dragon-Fly. "It's because men were made to boss
creation. See? You're one of the bosses, you are. You've been led to
expect a lot, and because you haven't had it you feel you've been
cheated. Life is like that. It's just a thing that mocks at you. I know."
She nodded again, and an odd, will-o'-the-wisp smile flitted over her
face.
"You seem to know--something of life," the man said.
She uttered a queer choking laugh. "Life is a big, big swindle," she said.
"The only happy people in the world are those who haven't found it out.
But you--you say there are other things in life besides suffering. How
did you know that if--if you've never had anything but dregs?"
"Ah!" Merryon said. "You have me there."
He was still looking full into those shadowy eyes with a curious,
dawning fellowship in his own.
"You have me there," he repeated. "But I do know. I was happy enough

once, till--" He stopped.
"Things went wrong?" insinuated the Dragon-Fly, sitting down on her
heels in a childish attitude of attention.
"Yes," Merryon admitted, in his sullen fashion. "Things went wrong. I
found I was the son of a thief. He's dead now, thank Heaven. But he
dragged me under first. I've been at odds with life ever since."
"But a man can start again," said the Dragon-Fly, with her air of
worldly wisdom.
"Oh, yes, I did that." Merryon's smile was one of exceeding bitterness.
"I enlisted and went to South Africa. I hoped for death, and I won a
commission instead."
The girl's eyes shone with interest. "But that was luck!" she said.
"Oh, yes; it was luck of a sort--the damnable, unsatisfactory sort. I
entered the Indian Army, and I've got on. But socially I'm practically an
outcast. They're polite to me, but they leave me outside. The man who
rose from the ranks--the fellow with a shady past--fought shy of by the
women, just tolerated by the men, covertly despised by the
youngsters--that's the sort of person I am. It galled me once. I'm used to
it now."
Merryon's grim voice went into grimmer silence. He was staring
sombrely into the fire, almost as if he had forgotten his companion.
There fell a pause; then, "You poor dear!" said the Dragon-Fly,
sympathetically. "But I expect you are like that, you know. I expect it's
a bit your own fault."
He looked at her in surprise.
"No, I'm not meaning anything nasty," she assured him, with that quick
smile of hers whose sweetness he was just beginning to realize. "But
after a bad knockout like yours a man naturally looks for trouble. He

gets suspicious, and a snub or two does the rest. He isn't taking any
more. It's a pity you're not married. A woman would have known how
to hold her own, and a bit over--for you."
"I wouldn't ask any woman to share the life I lead," said Merryon, with
bitter emphasis. "Not that any woman would if I did. I'm not a ladies'
man."
She laughed for the first time, and he started at the sound, for it was
one of pure, girlish merriment.
"My! You are modest!" she said. "And yet you don't look it, somehow."
She turned her right-hand palm upwards on his knee, tacitly inviting his.
"You're a good one to talk of life being worth while, aren't you?" she
said.
He accepted the frank invitation, faintly smiling. "Well, I know the
good things are there," he said, "though I've missed them."
"You'll marry and be happy yet," she said, with confidence. "But I
shouldn't put it off too long if I were you."
He shook his head. His hand still half-consciously grasped hers. "Ask a
woman to marry the son of one of the most famous swindlers ever
known? I think not," he said. "Why, even you--" His eyes regarded her,
comprehended her. He stopped abruptly.
"What about me?" she said.
He hesitated, possessed by an odd embarrassment. The dark eyes were
lifted quite openly to his. It came to him that they were accustomed to
the stare of multitudes--they met his look so serenely, so impenetrably.
"I don't know how we got on to the subject of my affairs," he said, after
a moment. "It seems to me that yours are the most important just now.
Aren't you going to tell me anything about them?"
She gave a small, emphatic shake of the head. "I should have been dead

by this time if you hadn't interfered," she said. "I haven't got any
affairs."
"Then it's up to me to look after you," Merryon said, quietly.
But she shook her head at that more vigorously still. "You look after
me!" Her voice trembled on a