Steve's eyes were steadily regarding the girl's smiling face. He noted the beautiful, frank, wide eyes, the perfect lips that so reminded him—
The fresh, clear, transparent cheeks forming so perfect an oval. Then there was her fair hair escaping from beneath the soft edges of her fur cap. She was prettier even than he had first thought.
"I allow it maybe sounds that way," he said. Then he shook his head. "But there's nothing unreal to it. No. There's no more unreal to Adresol than there is to the hell fires raging away out there in the heart of Unaga, where the whole place is white like a lake of pure milk with the bloom of the plant that breathes certain death, but which holds in its heart the greatest benefit the world's ever known. It's all queer, I allow. But—say—" He turned and pointed at the store-house. "It's all there. It's baled ready for Lorson Harris to buy. You can get a peek at it, at the stuff these folks reckoned to steal. Will you——?"
The invitation stirred Marcel to prompt anxiety. He laid a hand on Keeko's soft shoulder as she prepared to move away.
"Is it safe, Uncle Steve?" he demanded hastily. "You see, Keeko's not like——"
"Safe? Sure." Steve produced two masks. "I've worked in there for weeks, boy, with these things set on my face. I've worked all day and haf the night—baling. Sure it's safe. You go, too. There's a mask for each, and I guess they aren't just things of beauty. We'll go along over, and I'll fix 'em for you. I kind of fancy Keeko should see what's hid up in that store-house."
Steve led the way, and, hand in hand, like two children, the others followed him. At the door of the store-house he paused and turned. He stepped up to Marcel and adjusted his mask. And while he adjusted it his eyes remained unsmiling. He was careful, infinitely careful, in the adjustment, and in reply to the youth's protest at the nauseating taste of the drug he was forced to inhale his retort was briefly to the point.
"Sure it's no bouquet," he said. "But it's that or a—halo, and wings and things."
Keeko offered no protest at all. She was impressed far more than she knew. It seemed to her that the simple trust which prompted the man's action in revealing his secret to her, the secret Lorson Harris was willing to pay a hundred thousand dollars for, was something too simply wonderful for words.
With the adjustment of the masks Steve removed the fastenings that barred the door. He held it closed a moment and turned to Marcel.