The next afternoon she began work on an interview with Henry Addison
that was destined never to be finished. It was in the private room
that was accorded her at the "Courier-Journal" office that the thing
happened. She had paused in her writing to glance at a headline in the
afternoon paper announcing that Glendon was matched with Tom Cannam,
when one of the door-boys brought in a card. It was Glendon's.
"Tell him I can't be seen," she told the boy.
In a minute he was back.
"He says he's coming in anyway, but he'd rather have your permission."
"Did you tell him I was busy?" she asked.
"Yes'm, but he said he was coming just the same."
She made no answer, and the boy, his eyes shining with admiration
for the importunate visitor, rattled on.
"I know'm. He's a awful big guy. If he started roughhousing he could
clean the whole office out. He's young Glendon, who won the fight
last night."
"Very well, then. Bring him in. We don't want the office cleaned out,
you know."
No greetings were exchanged when Glendon entered. She was as cold and
inhospitable as a gray day, and neither invited him to a chair nor
recognized him with her eyes, sitting half turned away from him at
her desk and waiting for him to state his business. He gave no sign
of how this cavalier treatment affected him, but plunged directly
into his subject.
"I want to talk to you," he said shortly. "That fight. It did end in
that round."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I knew it would."
"You didn't," he retorted. "You didn't. I didn't."
She turned and looked at him with quiet affectation of boredom.
"What is the use?" she asked. "Prize-fighting is prize-fighting,
and we all know what it means. The fight did end in the round I told
you it would."
"It did," he agreed. "But you didn't know it would. In all the world
you and I were at least two that knew Powers wouldn't be knocked out
in the sixteenth."
She remained silent.
"I say you knew he wouldn't." He spoke peremptorily, and, when
she still declined to speak, stepped nearer to her. "Answer me,"
he commanded.
She nodded her head.
"But he was," she insisted.
"He wasn't. He wasn't knocked out at all. Do you get that? I am
going to tell you about it, and you are going to listen. I didn't
lie to you. Do you get that? I didn't lie to you. I was a fool,
and they fooled me, and you along with me. You thought you saw him
knocked out. Yet the blow I struck was not heavy enough. It didn't
hit him in the right place either. He made believe it did. He faked
that knockout."
He paused and looked at her expectantly. And somehow, with a leap
and thrill, she knew that she believed him, and she felt pervaded by
a warm happiness at the reinstatement of this man who meant nothing
to her and whom she had seen but twice in her life.
"Well?" he demanded, and she thrilled anew at the compellingness
of him.
She stood up, and her hand went out to his.
"I believe you," she said. "And I am glad, most glad."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account