Her mind working very rapidly, Barbara rose at once, and quite
unconsciously, so strong was habit in her, struck a match, set the
beggar's note on fire, threw it into the fireplace, and watched it burn
to ashes. On the way to the fireplace she pressed a button to summon her
maid. When this one came, Barbara, already out of her dressing-gown,
spoke imperatively:
"I am going out. I want a taxi called at once. Then come back and help
me dress."
But when the maid returned there was little for her to do. Barbara was
in a hurry.
She found a taxi waiting at the door. She glanced at the driver--he was
not one of those who usually drove her.
"Do you know where Marrow Lane is?"
"Is it near the Brooklyn Bridge, miss?"
"I think so. Marrow Lane, No. 81. You can make inquiries. Hurry."
The strange driver drove skilfully and swiftly down the avenue. Two
thoughts occupied him: the beauty of his fare, and the docility with
which she came to the master's hand when he called.
In Barbara's mind there was but one thought: not that she was going to
visit a disreputable man in a disreputable part of the city, but that
she was going to keep that man in the city and finish her bust of him,
or know the reason why. Fame was in her grasp. She felt astonishingly
sure of that. She was not going to let it escape for a mere matter of
convention. It had been her first idea to send Blizzard a note by
messenger. But she had more confidence in her personal powers of
persuasion. If her model needed money or was in some scrape that could
be righted by money and influence, she believed that she could keep him
in New York.
It was not yet dark, but all the city lamps were lighted, and the East
Side had that atmosphere of care-free gaiety habitual to it after
business hours when the weather is rainless and warm. The taxicab moved
slowly, because the children had overflowed the sidewalks and played
games which kept them in blissful danger of their lives. Twice the taxi
stopped. Instantly a crowd gathered about it, and Barbara became an
embarrassed but amused centre of criticism and admiration.
It became dark. The streets were less crowded. There were fewer lights.
There was an unpleasant smell of old fish and garbage. The people
Barbara now observed seemed each and all intent upon something or other.
They were not merely loafing in the pure evening air, but hurrying.
There were no more children. The taxi passed slowly (because of the
uneven pavement) through a short, narrow street. The few lights in this
street were nearly all red.
Save for the light in Blizzard's manufactory, Marrow Lane was dark and
deserted. For some reason or other the city lights had gone out, or had
been passed over by the lamplighter.
Through the glazed door Barbara saw the vast black shadow of Blizzard's
profile on the white wall of his office. There was no bell. She turned
the knob and pushed open the door. A bell clanged almost in her ear with
fierce suddenness. It was like an alarm. Her heart beat the quicker for
it; the number of her respirations increased. She was sorry that she had
come. She was frightened; still she stepped through the door-way, and
called in her clear? resolute voice:
"Mr. Blizzard! It's Miss Ferris."
His vast shadow remained motionless like a stain on the wall. And for a
moment he did not answer. Could she have seen his face itself, instead
of only its shadow, she must have turned with a cry of fear and found
that the door which had closed behind her, clanging its bell, was
locked, and that there was no escape that way.
If she had turned her head she must have seen that her taxi had gone
quietly away.
[Illustration: In the dim light she looked wonderfully young and
beautiful.]
In the dim light she looked wonderfully young and beautiful. The parted
opera-cloak disclosed her round straight throat and the broad smooth
modelling of the neck from which it rose. She seemed taller and more
stately than in street-dress, and at once younger, more defenceless,
more virginal. There was not enough light in the place to bring out the
contrasting colors of her hair. She looked like a black-haired beauty
with ivory-white skin, instead of an amber, red, and brown beauty, with
rosy, brown skin. Her head, small, round, and carried very high, lent
her an air of extraordinary breeding and distinction. She had no thought
for the short rose-brocade train of her dinner-dress, and let it trail
over the dirty floor.
"Mr. Blizzard!"
This time he answered. It sounded less like a voice than the hoarse bass
croak of a very enormous bull-frog.
"Please step this way."
Her head, if anything, a little higher than ever, she walked swiftly
forward right into the legless man's office.
His face was very white, swollen, it looked, and blotched with purple.
The veins in his forehead looked like mountain ranges on a
topographical map.
"I've only a minute," said Barbara.
He lowered his head now over his ledger, but said nothing. Then he
looked up and into her face steadily, and one by one the purple blotches
in his own face paled, and vanished, like the extinguishing of as many
hellish lights. And then to Barbara's horror a low groan, more like a
dog's than a man's, passed his tightly pressed lips, came out, and was
cut short off, as if with a keen knife.
"Are you sick?" she asked, not kindly, but imperatively and with a tone,
perhaps, of disgust.
"Yes," said the legless man briefly, but without going into any
explanation of his ailment. "You came to tell me that I mustn't go away
till the bust is finished. Is that it?"
Barbara felt more at her ease. "Yes," she said, "I am selfish about it.
It means so much to me."
"Well, you needn't have come," said Blizzard, and it was almost as if he
was angry with her for having done so. "I've changed my plans. I've had
to change them. I stay."
Barbara was immensely pleased. "I wish I could tell you how glad I am,"
she said.
"The thing now," said Blizzard, "is to get you back to your house. You
shouldn't have come to this part of the city at all; and especially not
dressed like that. But you didn't stop to think. You had an idea in your
head. And you came. Did anybody know where you were going when you
left home?"
She shook her head.
"Something dreadful might have happened to you," he said, and a curious
smile played about his mouth for a moment, "and no one the wiser.
Suppose you hadn't found me here to look after you? Suppose you'd found
some drunken crook just out of Sing Sing, or something worse?"
"But I _did_ find you," said Barbara, "and all is well."
"Yes--yes," he said, "all _is_ well. And you may thank your stars for
that. Why didn't you tell your taxi to wait?"
"But I did."
Again the curious smile flickered about the legless man's mouth. "Well,
he's gone."
Barbara followed the lead of Blizzard's eyes, and saw that the street in
front of his manufactory was empty. He reached for his crutches, and
swung himself down from his chair.
"Perhaps he's dropped down to Jake's saloon. Wait here. I'll see."
The bell of the outer door clanged with horrid suddenness. And then she
heard a piercing loud whistle twice repeated. And a few moments later
the sound of a motor.
"All right, Miss Ferris, I've got him."
She drew her cloak together, and joined the legless man on the sidewalk.
"Thank you very much," she said, "and good-by till to-morrow."
The taxicab driver's face had no expression whatever. He who understood
driving so well could not make out what the master was driving at.
Blizzard held open the door of the taxi, and Barbara got in. But he did
not at once close the door. Instead he turned his head and looked up the
street. Then he called out sharply:
"Hurry up! Can't you see the lady's waiting."
One came, running; a tall well-built youth, with an expression on his
face of cool, cynical courage and good humor.
"Miss Ferris," said Blizzard, "this young fellow will ride in with you
if you don't mind. You can drop him when you get out of the East Side,
and reach your own part of the city. He will see that no harm comes to
you. If you ask him questions he will answer them. Otherwise he will not
speak unless you wish."
The youth grinned a little sheepishly, and Barbara made room for him on
the seat beside her.
"He will answer for your safety," continued the legless man, "with his
ears. Where to?"
She gave the number of the house at which she was to dine, and the
legless man repeated it to the driver.
"Good-night, Mr. Blizzard, and thank you."
"Good-night, Miss Ferris, and welcome."
The legless man watched the taxicab until it had rounded the corner of
Marrow Lane. Then he looked upward at the stars for a while. Then he
swung slowly and wearily back into his rookery, and having extinguished
the light, sat for a long time in the dark.
What was it that had come over the man to let his victim escape when she
was so mercilessly in his power? Ask the stars to which he turned. Ask
the darkness in which he sits, alone, thinking. Better, perhaps, ask the
man's warped and tormented soul.
[Illustration: He turned with one foot on the sidewalk, and one in the
cab.... "Here I wishes you salutations ..."]
It seems that while he sat in his office waiting for her, a champion
rose up to defend her, a champion in his own heart. A champion who
made such headway against the brute's lawless and beastly intention as
to overthrow it.
Blizzard was in the power of that which all his mature life he had
feared more than hanging or the electric chair, more even than prisons.
He had fallen quietly, even gently, in love.
"I'm not going to ask you any questions," said Barbara, "because I don't
think of any. But if you like to talk, please do."
Without comment or preamble the youth who was to answer for her safety
with his ears, began to talk.
"Might have knocked me over with a feather," he said, "to find a lady
like you sitting in a cab in front o' Blizzard's place. At first look I
says to myself: 'One o' these high-fliers I've heard talk about that
likes to fly low.' Then I flings your eyes one penetrating peep, and
says to myself: ''Spect she ain't one o' that kind.' And I make out just
this about you that you're O.K. from A to Xylophone, and I takes this
opportunity to remark aloud to myself that I don't know what your game
is, and it's none o' my haterogeneous business, but if I was you I'd cut
Marrow Lane out o' my itenerary, and stay home nights playin' a quiet
rubber o' tiddle winks-the-barber."
Barbara laughed gayly. "Everybody," she said, "thinks that my friend,
Mr. Blizzard, is a very bad man. But he does nothing to prove it. He
has been very considerate of me in every way."
"Did I say anything against Blizzard? You'll tell him I did? Not you.
And I did not. If it _wasn't_ for him, I says, Marrow Lane _would_ be
hell's kitchen, and on the chanct that he ain't always going to be on
the spot, nor me, cut it out, I says. But," continued the talkative
youth, "in case you don't cut it out, in case you're ever in trouble
down our way you take this," bluntly he handed her a small, dark metal
whistle, "and blow her good. I knows the note, and if my ears is on the
job, you gets help. You gets it sudden. You gets it good. And here,
without fear or comment, I leaves you."
He signalled to the driver to stop. They had reached the southern
boundary of Washington Square. Barbara held out her hand. She was
greatly taken with her escort.
"And whom," she said, "am I thanking for the whistle?"
"Kid Shannon."
"Don't tell me," said Barbara, "that _you're_ the man who put Hook
Hammersley out in the third!"
"A right to the solar plexus," said Kid Shannon simply, "to bring him in
range and a left to the jaw. Even his friends admits that he begun to
take his gloves off while he was still in the air. But I'm in the saloon
business now, if it's all the same to you, having been light-weight
champion, and spoke a monologue over three circuits--nice-behaved ladies
and gentlemen o' both sexes always welcome, pay as you consume; but
for you or any friends o' yours the drinks will be on the house."
[Illustration: Wilmot Allen took her into dinner, and looked much love
at her, and talked much nonsense.]
He turned with one foot on the sidewalk, and one in the cab.
"Lady," he said, "what I've poured in jest, drink in earnest. All that's
yellow isn't butter. But if anybody was to ask you--say, a man who shall
be as nameless as he is legless--what I says to you during our
discursive promenaid, you answer back and say, 'Kid Shannon, whenever I
speaks to him, merely says, "Ha! Hum!"--_or words to that effect_.' Here
I wishes you salutations, and may your life contain nothing but times
when you looks and feels your best."
Barbara shook hands with him again. "Come to 17 McBurney Place," she
said, "some morning. Ask for Miss Ferris, and see what you think of the
bust she's making of Mr. Blizzard." She smiled mischievously. "He's
supposed to represent the devil just after falling into hell."
Shannon nodded with complete understanding. "Then," said he, "I bet he
looks a ringer for Hook Hammersley that time he hit the resin."
"Thank you for protecting me," said Barbara, "and for the whistle. Will
you tell the man to hurry, please? Thank you! Good-by."
She was very late to her dinner, but much too amused with recent events
to care. And nobody could have made her believe that her going to
Blizzard's place had been fraught with terrible peril. She prized the
whistle that Kid Shannon had given her, and resolved that some time she
would adventure again into his part of the city, and see if she could
bring him running to her side.
"I am sorry I am late," said Barbara, "but I couldn't help it." She
vouchsafed no further explanation, and because she was so young and
beautiful all those who had been kept waiting forgave her.
Wilmot Allen took her in to dinner, and looked much love at her, and
talked much nonsense. He was, indeed, so gay and foolish that she
imagined that he must have got himself into trouble again.