"Isn't it chilly?"
"I made spiced hot cider for us. We can sip it and think."
He let her draw him out onto the terrace. He leaned on the parapet,
his arm around her pulsing waist, his cape drawn around both their
shoulders.
"Bess, I won't ask if you'd stay with me no matter what the
circumstances. But it might be a time will come when I couldn't bear to
live in this city. What about that?"
"I don't know," she answered honestly.
And Cortwright Burr put his hand up over the edge of the parapet,
between them.
* * * * *
Sollenar stared down at the straining knuckles, holding the entire
weight of the man dangling against the sheer face of the building.
There was a sliding, rustling noise, and the other hand came up,
searched blindly for a hold and found it, hooked over the stone. The
fingers tensed and rose, their tips flattening at the pressure as Burr
tried to pull his head and shoulders up to the level of the parapet.
Bess breathed: "Oh, look at them! He must have torn them terribly
climbing up!" Then she pulled away from Sollenar and stood staring at
him, her hand to her mouth. "But he _couldn't_ have climbed! We're so
high!"
Sollenar beat at the hands with the heels of his palms, using the
direct, trained blows he had learned at his athletic club.
Bone splintered against the stone. When the knuckles were broken
the hands instantaneously disappeared, leaving only streaks behind
them. Sollenar looked over the parapet. A bundle shrank from sight,
silhouetted against the lights of the pedestrian level and the Avenue.
It contracted to a pinpoint. Then, when it reached the brook and water
flew in all directions, it disappeared in a final sunburst, endowed
with glory by the many lights which found momentary reflection down
there.
"Bess, leave me! Leave me, please!" Rufus Sollenar cried out.