II

A taxi came round the corner. The wheels, spinning over the road,

sounded like rain. He turned back.

“Sir!” cried a voice. “Please!”

The taxi had stopped, and a woman was leaning out of the window. Was she

calling him? It must be so, for there was no one else in sight.

“Can you please tell me where Mrs. Rice lives?” said the woman.

“Er--no,” said he. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know any one of that name

here.”

He spoke a little stiffly, because he did not _like_ that voice. It was

musical enough, but lacking in calm. She was not discouraged, however.

“If you’d just please look at this--card,” she said. “Perhaps I’ve read

the name wrong.”

Now Edward was frankly suspicious. He did not want to approach that

taxi, but he had not the moral courage to refuse. He would have

preferred to be set upon by bandits, to be blackjacked and robbed,

rather than show his reluctance. He stepped off the curb and crossed the

road. He _knew_ that something was going to happen.

The woman in the taxi handed him a card; and at the same moment she

clutched his collar, and, leaning forward, whispered in his ear:

“Say that Mrs. Rice lives in that house! Pretend to read the card!

Quick!”

What could he do? He didn’t want to say anything, but he did not know

how to refuse this agitated creature. He took the card, went around to

the front of the taxi, and pretended to read the card by the fierce

white glare of the headlights.

“Oh!” he said. “Mrs. _Bice_! I see! _She_ lives there--in that house.”

“Thank you!” said the woman in the taxi.

The instinct of self-preservation warned him to be off then, but he had

also another instinct--that of helping other people who were in trouble.

Something was obviously wrong here, and, prudent or not, he could not

turn his back and walk off. The woman had got out, and stood beside him

in the road.

“Please pay him and send him away!” she whispered.

So that was the game!

“I’m sorry,” said Edward blandly, “but I’ve come out without a penny in

my pockets.”

“Here!” said she, and thrust a purse into his hand. “Only _please_ get

rid of him!”

He saw he had been wrong. With a certain compunction, he approached the

driver.

“Five dollars!” said the man.

Edward leaned over and looked at the meter.

“Two forty,” he said.

“She made a special rate with me--” the driver began.

“Two forty,” said Edward briefly.

He opened the little purse, and found it crammed with bills--large

bills, some of them--an extraordinary amount of cash. He was searching

for change when the driver commenced.

Now Edward, as assistant credit manager, was not unaccustomed to

remonstrances from persons who could not get what they wanted; nor was

his nature a submissive or timid one. He felt quite able to withstand

the driver’s attack; but women are not like that. Bluster impresses

them, and this woman was impressed.

“Oh, please!” she cried. “Give him the five dollars! Give him anything!

Only do get rid of him!”

After all, it was her money. Edward gave the driver a five-dollar bill,

with a low and forcible remark. The engine started up, and off went the

taxi. It seemed extraordinarily quiet after it had gone.

“Drunk,” observed Edward.

“I know!” said the woman. “He was perfectly awful!”

She was going to cry, if she had not already begun; and he wanted no

more of _that_.

“Now, then!” he said, in a loud, cheerful voice. “Shall I get you

another taxi?”

“Please!” said she.

She was crying now--no doubt about it. What was worse, she took his arm

and clung to it.

“If you’ll wait here for a few minutes--” suggested Edward.

“Oh, I can’t!” she cried. “Oh, please don’t go away and leave me all

alone!”

He saw himself that it wouldn’t do to leave her standing here in the

street while he walked half a mile to the station for a taxi.

“I’ll go into the Baxters’ and telephone for one,” he thought.

But Mrs. Baxter was a particular friend of Mildred’s. She would bother

him. She would ask questions. She would want to know what he was doing,

wandering about at ten o’clock at night. She would suspect that there

had been a quarrel.

The idea was intolerable. He would not go to the Baxters’; and, not

having been long in the neighborhood, he knew no one else.

As he stood deliberating, the lights in the house behind them went out,

leaving the world very dark. For the moment, he felt a thousand miles

from home. He felt marooned, cut off. He couldn’t believe that just

around the corner was that six-room house of hollow tile, with all

improvements--that house which was mystically more than a house because

it was his home. He owned it. In his experience as assistant credit

manager he had seen what fatal accidents could happen to defer deferred

payments, and he would have none of them. His rule was to pay cash.

Mildred had more than once protested against this rule, but in vain.

“You’re always looking ahead and imagining that all sorts of queer,

awful things are going to happen,” she had said, only the day before;

“but they never do!”

They didn’t, didn’t they? A lot she knew!

“Where _can_ I get a taxi?” asked the voice at his side, and he came out

of his reverie with a start.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to walk to the station,” he said; “unless you

happen to pick one up on the way.”

“Oh, dear!” said she. “Is it far? Half a mile? But if I’ve got to walk

that far--isn’t there some sort of hotel in the town?”

“Yes--there’s the American House,” Edward told her.

“Then I’ll go there,” said she. “If you’ll just please tell me the

way--”

He knew that he must go with her--that she was one of those women who

can never go anywhere or do anything alone. Impossible to explain how he

knew this, or how, in the dark, and without having even once looked

squarely at her, he knew that she was young, pretty, and charmingly

dressed. Stifling a sigh, he set off at her side. It had to be.

She thanked him very nicely. He assured her that it was no trouble at

all, and then they both fell silent. She sounded as if she were walking

quickly, her little high heels clacking smartly on the pavement; but as

a matter of fact their progress was slow--a snail’s pace, Edward

thought. At this rate, he wouldn’t get back to the house for an

hour--that is, if he ever did go back. He said to himself that he had

not made up his mind what he would do; but in his heart he knew that he

couldn’t help himself. He was a victim of destiny.

“But it is awfully nice of you!” said the fair unknown. “Were you just

out taking a walk?”

“I wasn’t going anywhere,” Edward replied gloomily.

“That’s like me,” said she. “I’m not going anywhere. I don’t care where

I go, or what becomes of me!”

This alarmed Edward. After having been married to Mildred for nearly six

months, he knew that such people were possible. They really didn’t care

where they went or what they did. They were incalculably dangerous and

reckless.

“All women,” he thought somberly, “are alike--all of them!”

Perhaps at this moment Mildred was not caring where she went or what

became of her.

“I know you must wonder,” the fair unknown continued. “I don’t suppose

any one in the world could understand.”

She paused, but Edward gave her no encouragement.

“I really did know a Mrs. Rice who lived somewhere in this neighborhood

when I was a little girl,” she resumed. “Such a dear old lady. And

somehow, in my desperation, I thought of h-her.” She was wiping her eyes

with a small handkerchief. “You must think I’m so weak and s-silly!”

“Oh, no!” said Edward politely.

A fatalistic gloom enveloped him. He felt no curiosity at all. He knew

not where he was going, or why; and what chiefly occupied his mind was a

profound longing for a smoke and a hat. With a cigar, he felt, he could

have regained his philosophic outlook. With a hat, he could have faced

this situation more like a man of the world. He had neither, and he was

walking off into the night, away from home.

The lights of the town made him anxious that the lady should dry her

tears.

“I think it’s going to rain,” he observed in an easy, conversational

tone. “Country needs rain badly.”

He might have known that it wouldn’t work. She paid no attention

whatever to this remark.

“I only want to hide,” she said. “If I could have found dear old Mrs.

Rice! That driver--he was so awful! He was going to drive out into the

country and murder me. I saw it in his face. And then _you_ came!”

“I happened to be there,” Edward corrected her.

“Isn’t it strange, the way things happen?” she said in a low, intense

voice. “Doesn’t it seem like fate?”

It did. Edward said nothing. He was trying to invent some excuse for

getting his arm away from her before they passed any shops where he was

known. He failed to do so, however. The lights in all the shops on the

main street shone upon him, hatless, with the desperate lady clinging to

him.

The portico of the American House was in sight now. They drew nearer and

nearer. Ten steps more--

“Quick!” she whispered. She pulled violently at his arm, and in an

instant he found himself inside a jeweler’s shop. “He was there--outside

the hotel!” she whispered. “If he’d turned his head! He’d surely have

killed you! Isn’t that a _sweet_ bracelet?”

This last remark was for the benefit of the young man who had come

behind the counter. He seemed pleased, and brought out the bracelet in a

velvet box.

“Sweet, isn’t it?” she murmured.

She nudged Edward hard. He glanced at her, and a thrill of terror ran

through him. She was smiling archly at him. Her tears had in no way

marred a most lovely and piquant face. She was a beautiful and elegant

woman, such as Edward had frequently seen in his office. He knew these

pampered beings, and their naïve and exorbitant demands.

“Yes,” he replied faintly.

“Get it for me, dear!” she said.

He was stupefied.

“I want it! Get it for me, dear!” she repeated, with the same arch

smile; but her elbow dug sharply into his ribs.

“How much?” he asked in a hollow voice.

“Only twenty-five dollars,” she said brightly.

He turned aside, and from her well filled purse took out the requisite

amount. The young clerk wrapped up the bracelet and handed it to her. As

he did so, she leaned across the counter.

“Is there a back way to get out?” she asked in a low and confidential

voice. “They’re out there, looking for us, and we want to give them the

slip.”

“Certainly, madam,” said the clerk. “This way!”

He opened a door at the rear of the shop. They followed him along a dark

passage, across a yard, through a gate in the fence, and out into

another street.

“Er--good night!” said the clerk.

“No!” returned Edward. “Look here!”

But the fair unknown, still clinging to his arm, positively dragged him

on.

“Stupid!” she hissed. “Hurry up! Do you want to be killed?”

They turned the corner into a dark alley, and here Edward stopped.

“Look here!” he said sternly. “This can’t go on! I--”

“Don’t you see? He thought we were a bride and groom, trying to get

away.”

Edward believed none of this. He did not believe that he was in any

danger of being killed by any person whatsoever, or that the clerk had

thought what the unknown imagined; but women, as he had noticed before,

always believed what they wished to believe.

“I have to live in this town, you know,” he observed.

Of course this observation did not move her. Women never considered the

future. They lived, reckless and heedless, in the present moment.

“Where do you want to go now?” he pursued. “It’s getting late.”

“Leave me!” said she. “It doesn’t matter. Thank you for all you’ve done.

Go away and leave me!”

“I can’t leave you here--in an alley,” said Edward, repressing a violent

irritation.

“What does it matter?” said she. “I don’t care what becomes of me!”

“Well, I do!” said Edward.

“Oh, how sweet of you!” she cried, and began to weep again.

“I mean,” Edward explained hastily, “that I couldn’t leave _any_ woman

alone in a place like this.”

“You’re so ch-chivalrous!” she sobbed. “I knew it the moment I heard

your voice!”

“I am not chivalrous,” replied Edward firmly; “only--look here! I’ll get

a taxi and see you home.”

“I have no home!” she wailed.

“You must live somewhere.”

“I don’t--not any more. Oh, leave me! Leave me! I don’t care!” She

clutched his arm again, in that frenzied manner which so startled and

annoyed him. “Oh, my hat!” she cried. “It’s raining!”

She was right--the first heavy drops were beginning to fall.

“Oh, my _pretty_ little hat!” she cried.

Now, Edward’s was a just and logical mind, and yet even he had sometimes

been illogically moved by trifles. This infantile plaint about a pretty

little hat reminded him of certain things Mildred had said, and aroused

in him a pity which the stranger’s tragic and mysterious sorrows had

hitherto failed to inspire.

“Come on!” he said.