The Dark Star

By the end of the week Brandes had done much to efface any unpleasant

impression he had made on Ruhannah Carew.

The girl had never before had to do with any mature man. She was

therefore at a disadvantage in every way, and her total lack of

experience emphasised the odds.

Nobody had ever before pointedly preferred her, paid her undivided

attention; no man had ever sought her, conversed with her, deferred to

her, interested himself in her. It was entirely new to her, this

attention which Brandes paid her. Nor could she make any comparisons

between this man and other men, because she knew no other men. He was

an entirely novel experience to her; he had made himself interesting,

had proved amusing, considerate, kind, generous, and apparently

interested in what interested her. And if his unfeigned preference for

her society disturbed and perplexed her, his assiduous civilities

toward her father and mother were gradually winning from her far more

than anything he had done for her.

His white-faced, odd little friend had gone; he himself had taken

quarters at the Gayfield House, where a car like the wrecked one was

stabled for his use.

He had already taken her father and mother and herself everywhere

within motoring distance; he had accompanied them to church; he

escorted her to the movies; he walked with her in the August evenings

after supper, rowed her about on the pond, fished from the bridge,

told her strange stories in the moonlight on the verandah, her father

and mother interested and attentive.

For the career of Mr. Eddie Brandes was capable of furnishing material

for interesting stories if carefully edited, and related with

discretion and circumspection. He had been many things to many

men--and to several women--he had been a tinhorn gambler in the

Southwest, a miner in Alaska, a saloon keeper in Wyoming, a fight

promoter in Arizona. He had travelled profitably on popular ocean

liners until requested to desist; Auteuil, Neuilly, Vincennes, and

Longchamps knew him as tout, bookie, and, when fitfully prosperous, as

a plunger. Epsom knew him once as a welcher; and knew him no more.

He had taken a comic opera company through the wheat-belt--one way; he

had led a burlesque troupe into Arizona and had traded it there for a

hotel.

"When Eddie wants to talk," Stull used to say, "that smoke,

Othello, hasn't got nothing on him."

However, Brandes seldom chose to talk. This was one of his rare

garrulous occasions; and, with careful self-censorship, he was making

an endless series of wonder-tales out of the episodes and faits

divers common to the experience of such as he.