"What is it?"
"You're wanted on the telephone."
I jumped from the car and started for the club. There were the usual
groups of tea-drinkers and bridge-players scattered about on the broad
veranda, and it seemed to me, as I ran up the steps, that they all
stopped talking and looked at me, I thought, with curiosity, if not
with pity. There would be no use shutting up the newspapers if that
bunch of gossips were in possession of the scandal.
I hurried to the telephone and slammed the door to the booth, expecting
to hear the voice of some reporter demand if there was any truth to the
rumor that Mrs. James Felderson had run off with Frank Woods. To my
buzzing brain it seemed that the whole world must have heard the news.
"Hello," I called.
"Is that you, Warren?" It was Helen's voice.
"Helen!" I yelled. "For God's sake, where are you?"
"I am at the house. Listen, Warren! Have you seen Jim?"
Her voice sounded faint and strangely uncontrolled.
"Yes--yes," I shouted. "He's here with me now."
"Then bring him here quickly, Warren! Please hurry."
"But, Helen----"
"Don't ask me any questions, please." There was a catch in the voice
on the other end of the wire. "I c-can't answer any questions now, but
bring Jim, and hurry!"
The receiver clicked and I dashed out of the booth, a thousand
questions pounding in my brain. Why was Helen at the house? Had Frank
Woods failed to keep his appointment, thinking better of eloping with
another man's wife; or, had Helen come to her senses, seen through the
thin veneer that covered the cad and the libertine in Frank Woods and
returned to her husband for good? Over and above these questions and
conjectures and hopes, there was thanksgiving in my heart that the
irremediable step had not been taken; that something had intervened to
keep scandal and disgrace away from Jim.
There must have been something in my face that told Jim I had been
talking to Helen, for he moved into the driver's seat and greeted me
with the single question: "Where is she?"
"Home!" I panted, "and drive like the devil!"
I might have saved myself the trouble of the last, for even before I
got into the car there was a roar of exhaust and the crunch of grinding
gears and we were off down the smooth drive with a speed that quickly
brought tears to my eyes and put the fear of God in my heart.
How we ever escaped a smash-up after we got into the city I can't tell
to this day, for Jim never once slackened speed. He sat there with
jaws set, pumping gas and still more gas into the little car. Thrice I
saw death loom up ahead of us, as vehicles approached from
side-streets, but with a swerve and a sickening skid, we missed them
somehow. Once a street-car and a wagon seemed completely to block the
road ahead, but Jim steered for the slender opening and when I opened
my eyes we had skinned through, leaving a corpulent and cursing driver
far behind. After that I forgot my wretched fear and the blood surged
through my veins at the delicious feel of the air as it whipped my
cheeks. We turned at last into the long approach to Jim's house and it
was then that my heart sank.
Frank Woods' car was standing before the door.