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Show under pressure! xrr By George Agnew Chamberlain WNUS" C11A1TKR XVI Continued Turing M minutes they listened spellbound while she talked. At first M.irgarid.t Fonseca seemed a volcano vol-cano on the verge of eruption; while occasionally she protested with a snort of startling volume, to no statement did she dei.cn to voice actual denial. But gradually very gradually the scowl began to clear from her brow, her clenched fists relaxed, a gleam of admiration dawned in her eyes and at last the smile Joyce had seen only once before be-fore transfigured her expression, i "Ah!" cried the ex-minister of war, and it sounded like a groan of understanding mixed with rage. "It is clear what happened too clearl Licenciada Fonseca baited the hook, Onelia gladly swallowed it. By abandoning you to your fate in La Barranca without killing Dorado they created an unparalleled international inter-national situation which made me totter. One more push would send me over with a crash, and Onelia himself supplied the impulse by facilitating fa-cilitating the theft of the howitzers and casting the blame on me. Ah, senorita, you did well by yourself to bring me here today. Ai! Ai!" Without bothering to take his leave, he rushed from the room. A shadow swept across Margari-da's Margari-da's face, but promptly cleared. "Well, chica." she rumbled, "what wouldn't I give to have you for a partner!" "No more than Td give to have you for a friend," said Joyce from her heart "Oh, Margarida, please be my friend." "No," said Margarida, tossing her iron-gray mane of hair. "Impossible. "Impossi-ble. I detest you gringos all of you and all you stand for. Your insufferable pride in dynamics as the true and only end of man! Your price labels on everything pertaining pertain-ing to the soul! You jeer at our thieves' market; what about your juries, weighing gold against bushels bush-els of injured hearts? I could go on for an hour, but enough is enough. At the end we'd have to arrive at the truth. I love you, chica, my little lit-tle one, and I've always wished I might have a tiger just your size for a pet You're adorable." Dirk's telephoning from the embassy em-bassy now bore fruit Pablo entered and whispered to him, withdrew and a minute later came back accompanied accompa-nied by a respectable though threadbare thread-bare individual. The newcomer seemed nervous, at odds with his surroundings and the company in which he found himself. He had the . look of a man whose world has ' been yanked from under him, leaving leav-ing him floating in air out of reach of help from heaven or hell. He regarded the ambassador, Joyce and even Margarida Fonseca's arresting ar-resting presence with lackluster eyes, then turned to Dirk. "I'm the Reverend Ellerton Jones," he announced in the ghost of a voice. "I understand you sent for me, Mr. Van Suttart but I'm not at all sure not at all sure " "Sit down, sir," said Dirk, "and let's talk the thing over. This is more or less a family gathering. The ambassador isn't an ambassador ambassa-dor this afternoon; he's acting as f my father. As for Licenciada Margarida Mar-garida Fonseca, one of the highlights high-lights of the Mexican bar, she's a very dear friend of the girl whom I wish to marry. Miss Joyce Sew-elL Sew-elL Surely you'll help us out" "That's the trouble," said the lost soul doubtfully. I don t have to tell you, do I? My charge is gone. I have no rights, civil or otherwise scarcely the right to live. I'm here on sufferance. That's what I meant I'm not at all sure " "Are you in good standing with your church at home?" broke in the ambassador. "Yes, oh, yes. I'm awaiting my recall; no that's not quite true, I await the means with which to return." re-turn." "As long as you're a regularly ordained minister," said the ambassador, am-bassador, "that's all that the home states of these two young people require." "Please, sir," said Dirk earnestly, earnest-ly, "please, Mr. Jones, do let's be cheerful on this loveliest of all afternoons. after-noons. You can make Joyce and myself very happy in about five minutes, if you will, and we'll try to do the same by you. Say I send you back home in style drawing room, airplane. or if you like to drive I'll give you a car. What jak . about it, sir? I don't want to rush you but there are two more clergymen clergy-men waiting on your decision out. in the patio." Abruptly the lackluster eyes came to life; never dreaming how readily some men can lie Mr. Jones tugged a small worn book from his hip pocket and murmured, "Let us proceed pro-ceed with the ceremony." A strange wedding if there ever was one. It started on a note of haste and levity, but so moving and powerful are the words hallowed by time and usage to Anglo-Saxon ears i-that a spirit of reverence swept into the room on wings unseen yet surely felt. What though the voice of the preacher was the voice of habit, precise in intonation, humdrum in intent; it could not lessen the surge of emotion which took possession of the hearts of his hearers, choked their throats and turned dry eyes luminous. To the sight of the men and the woman present and in the sight of God no longer wore Joyce and Dirk arrayed in whipcord and saddle-stained moleskin, nor yet in silk or broadcloth. They wore clothed in light, their faces bathed in a glory from within which presaged pres-aged a devotion beyond any that lips alone can pledge. The ambassador put his arm around Joyce, kissed her and stood looking down into her eyes. "My dear, I've never given away a sweeter bride to a more lovable boy." He turned his head to look at Dirk. "What now?" he asked. "When do you intend to return to your job?" "That's up to Joyce, sir," said Dirk. "I've married her. I mean the whole of me has married her. "That's I'p to Joyce, Sir," Said Dirk. I've just heard some words I've never heard before in my life though I and you and everybody else know them by heart I take them as they stand." "He means it!" murmured the ambassador and returned his attention atten-tion to Joyce. "What about it my dear? I understand you have no use for embassies and all their works. What do you want Dirk to do shake his job and become a drone?" "A drone?" gasped Joyce, and caught her lip lest she laugh. She left his side, walked toward a window, win-dow, and turned. "You're a great ambassador," she stated gravely. "I've known you only an hour and already you stir in me something I'll have to call love one of the sweeter kinds of love because there's no other word that comes near it. I can imagine that sort of power doing good no matter where a man walks. If Dirk, like you, is headed toward awaking the love of his fellow man not of his nationals, nation-als, his fellow man what difference does it make where we live, what path he and I take together?" The ambassador stared at her, then turned very slowly to look at Dirk. "That's your release. Dirk, and I don't mind saying you've cut out a full-sized job for yourself whether you stay under me or go. Want more time to think it over?" "Yes, sir." "How long?" Dirk looked at Joyce and she answered an-swered for him. "Long enough to settle with Dorado." There was a disturbance in the hallway; General Sebastiano, fuming fum-ing with impatience, opened the door for himself and hastened toward to-ward the ambassador. "Excellency," "Excellen-cy," he cried, "I have accomplished much since I left here. I have been closeted with the president himself and return with a budget of news. For your relief let me say at once that our troubles are over." "Which trouble?" asked the ambassador am-bassador feelingly. "All, all," said the general. "Our countries can be at peace as never before and we may yet look upon the incident of La Barranca as a godsend." "That would be good news with a vengeance," murmured the ambassador. ambas-sador. "So it's the president himself him-self who found the solution?" "A perfect one and so simple it cuts the Gordian knot at a single stroke. What was the situation? A young girl, with the eyes of the world upon her, battling to hold her own property international dynamite dyna-mite as you yourself admitted. Had my government followed your suggestion sug-gestion of sending a battalion to fetch her out we would have become be-come ridiculous; but reverse the objective and you have a stroke of genius'." i "I don't follow you," said Die ambassador am-bassador testily. "Send a battalion to keep her In," continued the general with slow emphasis. em-phasis. "In short, the president suggests sug-gests that the government support the Mexican-born senorita Joyce Sewell in the lawful possession of her property, subject only to such restrictions as the national law provides, pro-vides, by every means In the power of the republic. As a first step he has directed me to dispatch at once a sufficient force for the capture of General Dorado bandit, bootlegger bootleg-ger of Illicit gold, and purloiner of a battery of howitzers." "Directed you?" asked the ambassador am-bassador with emphasis on the pronoun. pro-noun. "Why not General Onelia?" "Ah, Onelia. The president ordered or-dered his instant arrest, simultaneously simultane-ously with my reappointment as minister of war. Incidentally, the traitor Is no more." "You mean Onelia's dead?" cried the ambassador. "Through his own fault," asserted General Sebastiano sorrowfully, "and only in the last half-hour." Then he added in explanation, "our regrettable national habit of ley de fuga shot while attempting to escape es-cape from his guards." Margarida advanced with hand extended. "Mr. Minister," she rumbled, rum-bled, "let me be the first to congratulate con-gratulate you on the reassumptlon of the portfolio you know so well how to administer to your own honor hon-or and the honor of our country." She marched onward and turned in the door. "I trust both your excellencies excel-lencies will keep me in mind as a good lawyer though an honest woman." Dirk went out with the clergy-man; clergy-man; the ambassador withdrew, arm In arm with the minister of war, each aglow with plans fur a rapprochement that would bring glory to both. Joyce, the small cause of weighty matters, was left alone. Standing at a high window she watched their excellencies depart de-part but turned at the sound of a footstep. She and Dirk hung poised for a breathless moment with the room between them. Slowly they moved forward. The days they had spent together seemed to lengthen into years, reaching back Into a common childhood and knitting the Innermost fibers of their being. Their hands touched, clung, and as they looked deep in each other's eyes the same fear was born In them, the same silent cry: "This is I; if I lose you I'm lost torn, maimed." Then his arms opened and she crushed herself against him. "Oh, Dirk! Darling! Dirk!" "Don't worry," he whispered thickly. "I feel it too, Joyce. We won't lose each other, we can't I love you all of me loves all of you. Nothing ever can happen to one of us again." She raised her face, blinding with its incandescence. Their kiss opened the floodgates of the heart and swept their veins with fire. Life with its inevitable pitfalls stretched far and wide before them, but one thing they knew: this was the topmost top-most pinnacle of surrender. Never could they give again what now they gave, never step back out of that world of love to which all other loves are but an echo. (THE END) |