Willis left for New York on a late afternoon train; and when Lucinda had
said good-bye to him at the station, she felt as if she had parted with
her one real friend in all the world.
Nevertheless it had done her good to see and talk with him, and it was
in a courageous if not altogether a cheerful temper that she bade the
driver of her taxi stop at the Consolidated Ticket Office on the way
back to the Blackstone.
But a set-back threatened immediately when she applied for
transportation and a drawing-room through to Reno. The Winter stampede
of California tourists was in full westward swing, she learned, and not
only was every drawing-room and compartment sold for the next fortnight
on the trains of the Union Pacific system, the direct route to Reno, but
she would have to wait several days even if she were willing to content
herself with an upper berth.
The appalled expression with which she contemplated this alternative,
and tried to make up her mind which would be worse, to nurse her
loneliness in Chicago for another two weeks, or condemn herself for
three days to the promiscuous indecency of open sleeping-car conditions,
enlisted the sympathies of the susceptible if none too brilliant clerk
who had dashed her hopes; and promising to see what he could do, he
busied himself mysteriously with a battery of telephones, and presently
returned in a glow of vicarious delight, to announce that he had
arranged to book Lucinda through to San Francisco via the Santa Fe
system, with a section all to herself on the California Limited leaving
the next night.
To Lucinda's objection that she didn't want to go to San Francisco, she
wanted to go to Reno, he explained, and produced bewildering maps and
time-tables to prove his contention, that she would not only travel in
more comfort but would actually save time by going out immediately via
the Santa Fe and returning eastward from San Francisco to Reno, a
comparatively insignificant trip of some eleven hours.
To clinch the matter he offered to telegraph for a drawing-room
reservation to Reno on the first train to leave San Francisco after her
arrival. And Lucinda feebly humoured his anxiety to be of service to a
pretty lady.
Perhaps it was just as well, after all, that she wouldn't be able to
shut herself up on the train and mope alone, perhaps it would take her
out of herself a bit to be thrown into indiscriminate association with
fellow-travellers.
Among the first purchases she had made after calling at the Bank of
Michigan were a wardrobe trunk and a fitted dressing-case. And when the
trunk had been checked and trundled away by a porter, the next morning,
Lucinda had a long afternoon to fill in, and accomplished this by
attending a matinee.
Returning to the hotel about five, she was approaching the elevators
when, midway in the foyer, she stopped stock still, even her heart and
lungs momentarily refusing their office, transfixed by the sight of
Bellamy standing at the registry desk, in earnest consultation with one
of the clerks.
Apparently Bellamy had just learned what he wanted to know; Lucinda
recognized the backward jerk of the head that was an unfailing sign of
gratification in him, and saw him turn away from the desk. Galvanized,
she hurled herself toward one of the elevator shafts, the gate to which
was even then being closed. Luck and agility enabled her to slip through
before the gate clanged and the car shot upward--the passengers eyeing
Lucinda in amusement or amazement or both, the operator treating her to
a dark overshoulder scowl.
But she didn't care, her recklessness had purchased her a respite,
provisional and short-lived though it might prove; and when the elevator
had discharged its other passengers on floors below hers, she found a
richly compensating tip for the attendant.
"Sorry if I frightened you," she apologized. "There was somebody in the
lobby I didn't want to see me, and I had to act quickly."
"'Sall right, ma'am," the boy grumbled, pocketing the money. "Only yeh
don' wanta count on gettin' away with that sort of thing often, yeh
might of got yehself killed."
"I'll be more careful," Lucinda promised humbly, as the car stopped to
let her off. "And will you do something for me, please: tell the
management I'd like my bill sent up to my room at once, and that, if
anybody asks for me, I'm not in."
"Sure I will, ma'm."
When she entered her room the telephone was calling. She locked the
door; and for as long as it continued to ring, which it did for upwards
of five minutes with brief rests in discouragement, Lucinda did not move
or cease to regard it in frightened fascination, as if it were a thing
of malign intelligence which all her wit and ingenuity would hardly
serve to frustrate. At length it gave it up as a bad job, and she sank
limply into a chair near the door, and there remained stirless, trying
to master demoralized nerves, trying to think, till a knock brought her
to her feet in a flutter.
She had trouble finding voice enough to be heard through the door: "Who
is it?"
"Your bill, ma'm."
Not Bel's voice. Still it might be a trick. When she forced herself to
turn key and knob, she more than half expected to see her husband. But
the bellboy was alone. Lucinda took the bill and was counting out the
money, when the telephone began to trill again.
"Take those bags, please," she said, indicating the new dressing-case
and the bag which she had brought from New York, "put them in a taxi at
the door, and hold it till I come down. I shan't be long."
Alone, she answered the telephone.
"Hello? That you, Linda? It's I, Bel."
"Y-yes, I--I know."
"Thank God, I've found you! See here: I'm coming up, if you don't mind.
All right?"
"Yes, Bellamy--it--it's all right."
Running out into the hall, she found the stairs and pelted up two
flights. One of the elevators was rising. It stopped two floors below,
then came on up in response to her ring. The attendant whom she had
tipped so well was in charge, and there was nobody else in the car.
"Did you let somebody out at my floor?"
"Yes, ma'm, gempman."
"Take me down, please, without stopping."
The car dropped with sickening rapidity, and she stepped out into the
foyer, but only to realize in consternation the flat futility of her
strategem when Bel placed himself before her, blocking the way to the
street.
Her heart checked and raced, she was oddly at once aghast and elated.
She couldn't be sorry her ruse had failed, subconsciously she had wanted
all along to see Bel, just for a minute, face to face, with her own eyes
to see how he looked, how her flight had affected him, whether ill or
well.
Though he seemed to be quite himself, neither under the influence of nor
suffering from recent indulgence in drink, his face looked thinner, his
eyes a trifle more deeply set in his head; and there was new firmness in
the set of his mouth.
In this new guise, the old appeal was strong. For a space of several
beats her heart misgave her....
In a matter-of-course way Bel offered a hand, and Lucinda touched it
mechanically.
"Sorry, Linda, if I disappointed you, but thought I recognized your
handbag being carried to the door, and waited for this car to come down
on the off-chance...."
"I see," she articulated with an effort.
"Hope you're not angry...." Bel smiled as if he read her weakness,
smiled with a fatal trace of over-confidence. "Had to see you, couldn't
let you get away without giving me a hearing, after all the trouble I've
had finding you."
"It's too late, I'm afraid--this isn't the place, either, to discuss
such matters. Besides, I'm in a great hurry."
"You can give me a few minutes, surely. If you'll step into the
reception-room with me for a minute----"
"Bel: I tell you it's too late."
Struggling to keep his temper, Bel caught his underlip between his
teeth, while Lucinda cast witlessly about her for some way of escape.
None offered. But she noticed that a young man standing nearby was
observing them with keen interest, a rather brilliantly good-looking
young man, brilliantly well dressed. As Lucinda's glance rested
transiently on him, his face brightened with a tentative smile, and she
thought he started as if he were impulsively minded to approach. If so,
he reconsidered instantly. With a frown she looked back to Bel.
He made a gesture of entreaty. "You can't put me off like this, Linda,
when I've come so far, gone through so much----"
"I can because I must, Bel--I will."
"No, by God! you can't and shan't!"
He caught her arm lightly as she tried to pass. She stopped, her face
hardening.
"Are you going to make another scene, publicly disgrace me again even
when sober?"
His hand dropped to his side. Lucinda began to walk rapidly toward the
street entrance, but had taken few steps when Bellamy ranged alongside.
"Linda: you've _got_ to listen to me! There's something I've got to tell
you----"
"Then go back to New York and tell it to Harford Willis. If it's
anything I want to hear, he will write me."
"Harford Willis! What's he--!" The significance of her words seemed to
come to Bel all at once. "You don't mean to say you're going--! You
can't be meaning to--!" With a long stride Bel swung in front of her
again at the head of the stairs to the street. "At least, tell me what
you mean to do."
"I mean to go to Reno, as soon as you let me pass."
Bellamy's eyes narrowed as if in physical pain. He threw out a hand of
inarticulate protest, and let it fall in despair. Subduing a strong
desire to bolt for it, Lucinda began to descend at a pace not
inconsistent with dignity. At the same time, sensitiveness to the
situation, the feeling that they had been playing a scene of intimate
domestic drama for the edification of an entire hotel, made her aware
that the young man whose interest had first manifested near the
elevators had followed and was now standing at the head of the steps,
over across from Bellamy.
Pushing through the door, she breathed thankfully the stinging winter
air. The canopy lamps made the sidewalk bright and discovered her
bellboy shivering by the open door of a taxicab. As she moved toward it
she heard the revolving door behind her buffet the air, then Bel's voice
crying out her name.
Abandoning all pretense, Lucinda ran. The bellboy caught her arm to help
her into the cab and chattered: "W-where t-t-to, m'm?" She was prevented
from answering by Bel, who elbowed the boy aside and caught her by the
shoulders.
"No!" he cried violently. "No, you shan't--d'you hear?--you shan't go
without listening to me!"
By some means, she did not know quite how, Lucinda broke out of his
hands and stepped back.
"Let me alone!" she insisted. "Let me----"
Somebody came between them. Startled, she identified the strange young
man of the foyer.
"Can I be of service?" he suggested in an amused drawl.
Instinctively she gasped: "No, please--!" At the same time Bel tried to
shoulder the other roughly out of his way; the gratuitous champion stood
firm, merely counselling "Easy, old thing, easy!" Then Bel lost his
head. Lucinda heard him damning the other. There was a slight scuffle,
in which the two, locked in each other's arms, reeled to one side. The
bellboy was shouting "Now, ma'm--now's your chance!" She stumbled into
the taxi. Holding the door, the boy demanded: "Where to, ma'm--where
to?" She gasped: "Anywhere--only, tell him, hurry!" The door crashed,
gears meshed with a grinding screech, the cab leaped forward with such
spirit that Lucinda was thrown heavily against the back of the seat.
When she recovered, the vehicle was turning a corner. Through its window
she caught a glimpse of the sidewalk in front of the Blackstone, just a
bare glimpse of two figures struggling, with several others running
toward them. Then the corner blocked out the scene.