Hamar and Miss Martin--is it likely to come off?"
"Ish it likely!" Curtis said with a stupid leer. "Ish it likely! Not
much. Leon means nothing! He only wants the fun of being engaged to a
pretty girl--like I wantsh fun with you. Nothing more."
"Then he'll throw her over after a while."
"After he gets what he wantsh to get."
"And suppose she prove different to what he expects?"
"After he pashes stage seven--that will be all right!" Curtis said
giving her waist an emphatic squeeze. "Everybody will be all right
then. You and Matt--for exshample--and I and--and--whishky!"
"Stage seven! What do you mean?"
"Why don't--you know!" Curtis gurgled--and then a sudden gleam of
intelligence coming into his watery eyes, he added. "Then I shan't
tell you--nothing shall make me. It's a shecret!"
"I won't kiss you till you do!" Lilian Rosenberg said.
"I'll make you."
"Oh, no, you won't," Lilian Rosenberg cried, disengaging herself from
his grasp, and rising. "Don't you dare touch me. I'm going."
Curtis watched her with a helpless grin. Then he suddenly cried out,
"Come back! Come back, I shay!"
"Well, will you do as I want?" Lilian Rosenberg said.
"I'll do anything--anything to please you--if only you shtay with me."
She sat down, and his arm once again encircled her.
"Now," she said, pushing his face away. "Tell me!"
Bit by bit she drew out of him the whole history of the compact with
the Unknown, how in stage five, the stage they were about to enter,
they would have fresh powers conferred upon them--their present power,
_i.
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