The Girl From His Town

  CHAPTER XXVIII--SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS

  Dan was in his room at the hotel. He woke and then slept again. Nothingseemed strange to him--nothing seemed real. It was three o'clock in themorning, the rumble of Paris was dull; it did not disturb him, for heseemed without the body and to have grown giantlike, and to fill theroom. He had a sense of suffocation and the need to break through thewindows and to escape into ether.

  The entrance of Poniotowsky's two friends was a part with the unrealnaturalness. One was a Roumanian, the other a Frenchman--both spokefluent English. Dan, his eyes fixed on the foreign faces, only half sawthem; they blurred, their voices were small and far away. Finally hesaid:

  "All right, all right, I can shoot well enough; this kind of thing isn'tour custom, you know--I'd as soon kill him one way as another, as amatter of fact. No, I don't know a darned soul here." There was a confabincomprehensible to Dan. "It's all one to me, gentlemen," he said. "I'drather not drag in my friends, anyhow. Fix it up to suit yourselves."

  He wanted them to go--to be alone--to stretch his arms, to rid himself ofthe burden of sense, and be free. And after they had left, he remainedin his window till dawn. It came soon, midsummer dawn, a singularlytender morning in his heart. His mind worked with great rapidity. He hadmade his will in the States. He wished he could have left everything toLetty Lane, but if, as Ruggles said, he was a pauper? Perhaps it wasn'ta lie after all. Dan had written and telegraphed Ruggles asking for thesolemn truth, and also telling him where he was and asking the older manto come over. If Ruggles proved he was poor, why, some of his burden wasgone. His money had been a burden, he knew it now. He might have no usefor money the next day. What good could it do him in a fix like this? Hewas to meet Poniotowsky at five o'clock in a place whose name hecouldn't recall. He had seen it advertised, though; people went therefor lunch.

  They were to shoot at twenty-five paces--he might be a Rockefeller or abeggar for all the good his money could do him in a pinch like this.

  His father wouldn't approve, the old man wouldn't approve, but he hadsent him here to learn the ways of the old world. A flickering smilecrossed his beautiful, set face. His lessons hadn't done him much good;he would like to have seen good old Gordon Galorey again; he lovedhim--he had no use for Ruggles, no use--it had been all his fault. Hismind reached out to his father, and the old man's words came dinningback: "Buy the things that stay above ground, my boy." What were thosethings? He had thought they were passion--he had thought they were love,and he had put all on one woman. She couldn't stand by him, now that hewas poor.

  The spasm in his heart was so sharp that he made a low sound in histhroat and leaned against the casing of the window. He must see her,touch her once more.

  The fellows Poniotowsky's seconds had chosen to be Dan's representativescame in to "fix him up." They were in frock-coats and carried their silkhats and their gloves. He could have laughed at them. Then they made himthink of undertakers, and his blood grew cold. He handled the revolverswith care and interest.

  "I'm not going to let him murder me, you know," he told his seconds.

  They helped him dress, at least one of them did, while the other tookDan's place by the window and looked to the boy like a figure of death.

  The hour was getting on; he heard his own motor drive up, and they wentdown, through the deserted hotel. The men who had consented to act forDan regarded their principal curiously. He wasn't pale, there was abrightness on his face.

  "_Partons_," said one of them, and told Blair's chauffeur where to goand how to run. "_Partons._"