"I slipped them in your coat pocket before----"
Instantly her hand was free, Maitland ramming both his own into the
side pockets of his top-coat. "They're safe!"
She smiled uncertainly.
"We have no time," said she. "Can you drive--?"
They were standing by the side of her car, which had been cunningly
hidden in the gloom beneath a spreading tree on the further side of the
road. Maitland, crestfallen, offered his hand; the tips of her fingers
touched his palm lightly as she jumped in. He hesitated at the step.
"You wish me to?"
She laughed lightly. "Most assuredly. You may assure yourself that I
shan't try to elude you again----"
"I would I might be sure of that," he said, steadying his voice and
seeking her eyes.
"Procrastination won't make it any more assured."
He stepped up and settled himself in the driver's seat, grasping
throttle and steering-wheel; the great machine thrilled to his touch
like a live thing, then began slowly to back out into the road. For an
instant it seemed to hang palpitant on dead center, then shot out like
a hound unleashed, _ventre-à-terre_,--Brooklyn miles away over the hood.
It seemed but a minute ere they were thundering over the Myannis
bridge. A little further on Maitland slowed down and, jumping out,
lighted the lamps. In the seat again,--no words had passed,--he threw
in the high-speed clutch, and the world flung behind them, roaring.
Thereafter, breathless, stunned by the frenzy of speed, perforce
silent, they bored on through the night, crashing along deserted
highways.
In the east a band of pallid light lifted up out of the night, and the
horizon took shape against it, stark and black. Slowly, stealthily, the
formless dawn dusk spread over the sleeping world; to the zenith the
light-smitten stars reeled and died, and houses, fields, and
thoroughfares lay a-glimmer with ghostly twilight as the car tore
headlong through the grim, unlovely, silent hinterland of Long Island
City.
The gates of the ferry-house were inexorably shut against them when at
last Maitland brought the big machine to a tremulous and panting halt,
like that of an over-driven thoroughbred. And though they perforce
endured a wait of fully fifteen minutes, neither found aught worth
saying; or else the words wherewith fitly to clothe their thoughts were
denied them. The girl seemed very weary, and sat with head drooping and
hands clasped idly in her lap. To Maitland's hesitant query as to her
comfort she returned a monosyllabic reassurance. He did not again
venture to disturb her; on his own part he was conscious of a clogging
sense of exhaustion, of a drawn and haggard feeling about the eyes and
temples; and knew that he was keeping awake through main power of will
alone, his brain working automatically, his being already a-doze.
The fresh wind off the sullen river served in some measure to revive
them, once the gates were opened and the car had taken a place on the
ferry-boat's forward extreme. Day was now full upon the world; above a
horizon belted with bright magenta, the cloudless sky was soft
turquoise and sapphire; and abruptly, while the big unwieldy boat
surged across the narrow ribbon of green water, the sun shot up with a
shout and turned to an evanescent dream of fairy-land the gaunt,
rock-ribbed profile of Manhattan Island, bulking above them in tier
upon tier of monstrous buildings.
On the Manhattan side, in deference to the girl's low-spoken wish,
Maitland ran the machine up to Second Avenue, turned north, and brought
it to a stop by the curb, a little north of Thirty-fifth Street.
"And now whither?" he inquired, hands somewhat impatiently ready upon
the driving and steering-gear.
The girl smiled faintly through her veil. "You have been most kind,"
she told him in a tired voice. "Thank you--from my heart, Mr. Anisty,"
and made a move as if to relieve him of his charge.
"Is that all?" he demanded blankly.
"Can I say more?"
"I ... I am to go no further with you?" Sick with disappointment, he
rose and dropped to the sidewalk--anticipating her affirmative answer.
"If you would please me," said the girl, "you won't insist...."
"I don't," he returned ruefully. "But are you quite sure that you're
all right now?"
"Quite, thank you, dear Mr. Anisty!" With a pretty gesture of
conquering impulse she swept her veil aside, and the warm rose-glow of
the new-born day tinted her wan young cheeks with color. And her eyes
were as stars, bright with a mist of emotion, brimming with
gratitude--and something else. He could not say what; but one thing he
knew, and that was that she was worn with excitement and fatigue, near
to the point of breaking down.
"You're tired," he insisted, solicitous. "Can't you let me----?"
"I am tired," she admitted wistfully, voice subdued, yet rich and
vibrant. "No, please. Please let me go. Don't ask me any
questions--now."
"Only one," he made supplication. "I've done nothing----"
"Nothing but be more kind than I can say!"
"And you're not going to back out of our partnership?"
"Oh!" And now the color in her cheeks was warmer than that which the
dawn had lent them. "No ... I shan't back out." And she smiled.
"And if I call a meeting of the board of management of Anisty and
Wentworth, Limited, you will promise to attend?"
"Ye-es...."
"Will it be too early if I call one for to-day?"
"Why...."
"Say at two o'clock this afternoon, at Eugene's. You know the place?"
"I have lunched there----"
"Then you shall again to-day. You won't disappoint me?"
"I will be there. I ... I shall be glad to come. Now--_please_!"
"You've promised. Don't forget."
He stepped back and stood in a sort of dreamy daze, while, with one
final wonderful smile at parting, the girl assumed control of the
machine and swung it out from the curb. Maitland watched it forge
slowly up the Avenue and vanish round the Thirty-sixth Street corner;
then turned his face southward, sighing with weariness and discontent.
At Thirty-fourth Street a policeman, lounging beneath the corrugated
iron awning of a corner saloon, faced about with a low whistle, to
stare after him. Maitland experienced a chill sense of criminal guilt;
he was painfully conscious of those two shrewd eyes, boring gimlet-like
into his back, overlooking no detail of the wreck of his evening
clothes. Involuntarily he glanced down at his legs, and they moved
mechanically beneath the edge of his overcoat, like twin animated
columns of mud and dust, openly advertising his misadventures. He felt
in his soul that they shrieked aloud, that they would presently succeed
in dinning all the town awake, so that the startled populace would come
to the windows to stare in wonder as he passed by. And inwardly he
groaned and quaked.
As for the policeman, after some reluctant hesitation, he overcame the
inherent indisposition to exertion that affects his kind, and, swinging
his stick, stalked after Maitland.
Happily (and with heartfelt thanksgiving) the young man chanced upon a
somnolent and bedraggled hack, at rest in the stenciled shadows of the
Third Avenue elevated structure. Its pilot was snoring lustily the
sleep of the belated, on the box. With some difficulty he was awakened,
and Maitland dodged into the musty, dusty body of the vehicle, grateful
to escape the unprejudiced stare of the guardian of the peace, who in
another moment would have overtaken him and, doubtless, subjected him
to embarrassing inquisition.
As the ancient four-wheeler rattled noisily over the cobbles, some of
the shops were taking down their shutters, the surface cars were
beginning to run with increasing frequency, and the sidewalks were
becoming sparsely populated. Familiar as the sights were, they were yet
somehow strangely unreal to the young man. In a night the face of the
world had changed for him; its features loomed weirdly blurred and
contorted through the mystical grey-gold atmosphere of the land of
Romance, wherein he really lived and moved and had his being. The
blatant day was altogether preposterous: to-day was a dream, something
nightmarish; last night he had been awake, last night for the first
time in twenty-odd years of existence he had lived....
He slipped unthinkingly one hand into his coat pocket, seeking
instinctively his cigarette case; and his fingers brushed the
coarse-grained surface of a canvas bag. He jumped as if electrified. He
had managed altogether to forget them, yet in _his_ keeping were the
jewels, Maitland heirlooms--the swag and booty, the loot and plunder of
the night's adventure. And he smiled happily to think that his interest
in them was Fifty-percent depreciated in twenty-four hours; now he
owned only half....
Suddenly he sat up, with happy eyes and a glowing face. _She_ had
trusted him!