“Game? It’s a gift.” Jubilee chuckled. “If she’d take me as partner,” he went on with meaning, “we’d clean up half the world.”
McLagan removed his cigar and dropped its ash into the fixed tray provided on the table on which Jubilee was sitting.
“Have you put it to her?” he asked smilingly.
The other shook his head.
“Not on your life, Mac,” he said seriously. “I’m sure like every other guy around the way I feel but I’ve a sight too big a respect for a good woman to want to tie her up to the kind of life I live. Maybe sometime I’ll make the pile I mostly dream about, and I’ll be able to quit the game I’ve always run. Well, when that time comes, and I’ve learnt Sunday School ways, I’ll be feeling and acting pious. Maybe it ’ud be different then. Say, Doc’s doping off his feed.”
“You’re wrong, boy.” The Doctor bestirred himself. “But likely enough I was dreaming. I thought I heard you talking of acting—pious. I——”
He broke off. The curtains had been abruptly drawn aside from the great archway. Two of the waiters were holding them back. Suddenly there was a curious hissing sound somewhere up in the shadows about the domed ceiling. The next moment a fierce light flashed out, filling the archway with the white-circle of its beam. It was a “spot lime,” and it fell on the tall, slim figure of a beautifully gowned girl as she appeared from the landing beyond. It was Max’s greeting, on the night of celebration, to the beautiful Saint of his beloved Speedway.
Just for an instant Claire Carver stood dazzled by the glare of the unexpected light. Every eye in the room was turned in her direction to discover the meaning of the terrific blaze. And in that moment Ivor McLagan feasted himself upon the vision he had been awaiting.
The girl was clad in an expensive sort of semi-evening gown of soft, black material, aglitter with the shining surfaces of a myriad of black beads. At her waist was a large, sprawling artificial flower that matched the ruddy tone of her vivid hair. She was without gloves, and her rounded arms of alabaster whiteness were bare to the shoulder, and her gown below the knees revealed sheeny silk stockings which terminated in high-arched insteps and exquisite shoes. But her glory was the hat adorned with flowing Paradise plumes, and the wealth of her hair framing a face whose beauty set the pulses of the gazing man hammering.
Never in his life had McLagan seen Claire a creature so exquisite. And there flashed through his mind a memory of the girl of the headland, tortured by the threat of Bad Booker’s usurious terms. The change, the complete transformation, was amazing. There had been change before. He had seen it and delighted in it. But there had been nothing like this. This was the girl’s party gown. He understood that. She was——