The Safety Curtain | Page 3

of an imprisoned insect. It was as if wild wings fluttered
against captivity.
And then all in a moment the struggling ceased, and in a low, eager
voice the captive began to plead.
"Please, please let me go! You don't know--you don't understand. I
came--because--because--you called. But I was wrong--I was wrong to
come. You couldn't keep me--you wouldn't keep me--against my will!"
"Do you want to die, then?" the man demanded. "Are you tired of life?"
His eyes still shone piercingly down, but they read but little, for the
dancer's were firmly closed against them, even while the dark cropped
head nodded a strangely vigorous affirmative.

"Yes, that is it! I am so tired--so tired of life! Don't keep me! Let me
go--while I have the strength!" The little, white, sharp-featured face,
with its tight-shut eyes and childish, quivering mouth, was painfully
pathetic. "Death can't be more dreadful than life," the low voice urged.
"If I don't go back--I shall be so sorry afterwards. Why should one
live--to suffer?"
It was piteously spoken, so piteously that for a moment the man
seemed moved to compassion. His hold relaxed; but when the little
form between his hands took swift advantage and strained afresh for
freedom he instantly tightened his grip.
"No, No!" he said, harshly. "There are other things in life. You don't
know what you are doing. You are not responsible."
The dark eyes opened upon him then--wide, reproachful, mysteriously
far-seeing. "I shall not be responsible--if you make me live," said the
Dragon-Fly, with the air of one risking a final desperate throw.
It was almost an open challenge, and it was accepted instantly, with
grim decision. "Very well. The responsibility is mine," the man said
briefly. "Come with me!"
His arm encircled the narrow shoulders. He drew his young companion
unresisting from the spot. They left the glare of the furnace behind
them, and threaded their way through dark and winding alleys back to
the throbbing life of the city thoroughfares, back into the whirl and
stress of that human existence which both had nearly quitted--and one
had strenuously striven to quit--so short a time before.
CHAPTER II
NOBODY'S BUSINESS
"My name is Merryon," the man said, curtly. "I am a major in the
Indian Army--home on leave. Now tell me about yourself!"
He delivered the information in the brief, aggressive fashion that

seemed to be characteristic of him, and he looked over the head of his
young visitor as he did so, almost as if he made the statement against
his will.
The visitor, still clad in his great-coat, crouched like a dog on the
hearthrug before the fire in Merryon's sitting-room, and gazed with
wide, unblinking eyes into the flames.
After a few moments Merryon's eyes descended to the dark head and
surveyed it critically. The collar of his coat was turned up all round it.
It was glistening with rain-drops and looked like the head of some
small, furry animal.
As if aware of that straight regard, the dancer presently spoke, without
turning or moving an eyelid.
"What you are doesn't matter to any one except yourself. And what I
am doesn't matter either. It's just--nobody's business."
"I see," said Merryon.
A faint smile crossed his grim, hard-featured face. He sat down in a low
chair near his guest and drew to his side a small table that bore a tray of
refreshments. He poured out a glass of wine and held it towards the
queer, elfin figure crouched upon his hearth.
The dark eyes suddenly flashed from the fire to his face. "Why do you
offer me--that?" the dancer demanded, in a voice that was curiously
vibrant, as though it strove to conceal some overwhelming emotion.
"Why don't you give me--a man's drink?"
"Because I think this will suit you better," Merryon said; and he spoke
with a gentleness that was oddly at variance with the frown that drew
his brows.
The dark eyes stared up at him, scared and defiant, for the passage of
several seconds; then, very suddenly, the tension went out of the white,
pinched face. It screwed up like the face of a hurt child, and all in a

moment the little, huddled figure collapsed on the floor at his feet,
while sobs--a woman's quivering piteous sobs--filled the silence of the
room.
Merryon's own face was a curious mixture of pity and constraint as he
set down the glass and stooped forward over the shaking, anguished
form.
"Look here, child!" he said, and whatever else was in his voice it
certainly held none of the hardness habitual to it. "You're
upset--unnerved. Don't cry so! Whatever you've been through, it's over.
No one can make you go back. Do you understand? You're free!"
He laid his hand, with the clumsiness of one little accustomed