Cora lost no time. Corliss had not closed the front door behind
him before she was running up the stairs. Mrs. Madison, emerging
from her husband's room, did not see her daughter's face; for Cora
passed her quickly, looking the other way.
"Was anything the matter?" asked the mother anxiously. "I thought
I heard----"
"Nothing in the world," Cora flung back over her shoulder. "Mr.
Corliss said I couldn't imitate Sara Bernhardt, and I showed him I
could." She began to hum; left a fragment of "rag-time" floating
behind her as she entered her own room; and Mrs. Madison,
relieved, returned to the invalid.
Cora changed her clothes quickly. She put on a pale gray skirt and
coat for the street, high shoes and a black velvet hat, very
simple. The costume was almost startlingly becoming to her: never
in her life had she looked prettier. She opened her small
jewel-case, slipped all her rings upon her fingers; then put the
diamond crescent, the pendant, her watch, and three or four other
things into the flat, envelope-shaped bag of soft leather she
carried when shopping. After that she brought from her
clothes-pantry a small travelling-bag and packed it hurriedly.
Laura, returning from errands downtown and glancing up at Cora's
window, perceived an urgently beckoning, gray-gloved hand, and
came at once to her sister's room.
The packed bag upon the bed first caught her eye; then Cora's
attire, and the excited expression of Cora's face, which was
high-flushed and moist, glowing with a great resolve.
"What's happened?" asked Laura quickly. "You look exactly like a
going-away bride. What----"
Cora spoke rapidly: "Laura, I want you to take this bag and keep
it in your room till a messenger-boy comes for it. When the bell
rings, go to the door yourself, and hand it to him. Don't give
Hedrick a chance to go to the door. Just give it to the boy;--and
don't say anything to mamma about it. I'm going downtown and I may
not be back."
Laura began to be frightened.
"What is it you want to do, Cora?" she asked, trembling.
Cora was swift and business-like. "See here, Laura, I've got to
keep my head about me. You can do a great deal for me, if you
won't be emotional just now, and help me not to be. I can't afford
it, because I've got to do things, and I'm going to do them just
as quickly as I can, and get it over. If I wait any longer I'll go
insane. I _can_'T wait! You've been a wonderful sister to me; I've
always counted on you, and you've never once gone back on me.
Right now, I need you to help me more than I ever have in my life.
Will you----"
"But I must know----"
"No, you needn't! I'll tell you just this much: I've got myself in
a devil of a mess----"
Laura threw her arms round her: "Oh, my dear, dear little sister!"
she cried.
But Cora drew away. "Now that's just what you mustn't do. I can't
stand it! You've got to be _quiet_. I can't----"
"Yes, yes," Laura said hurriedly. "I will. I'll do whatever you
say."
"It's perfectly simple: all I want you to do is to take charge of
my travelling-bag, and, when a messenger-boy comes, give it to him
without letting anybody know anything about it."
"But I've got to know where you're going--I can't let you go and
not----"
"Yes, you can! Besides, you've promised to. I'm not going to do
anything foolish ----"
"Then why not tell me?" Laura began. She went on, imploring Cora
to confide in her, entreating her to see their mother--to do a
dozen things altogether outside of Cora's plans.
"You're wasting your breath, Laura," said the younger sister,
interrupting, "and wasting my time. You're in the dark: you think
I'm going to run away with Val Corliss and you're wrong. I sent
him out of the house for good, a while ago----"
"Thank heaven for that!" cried Laura.
"I'm going to take care of myself," Cora went on rapidly. "I'm
going to get out of the mess I'm in, and you've got to let me do
it my own way. I'll send you a note from downtown. You see that
the messenger----"
She was at the door, but Laura caught her by the sleeve,
protesting and beseeching.
Cora turned desperately. "See here. I'll come back in two hours
and tell you all about it. If I promise that, will you promise to
send me the bag by the----"
"But if you're coming back you won't need----"
Cora spoke very quietly. "I'll go to pieces in a moment. Really, I
do think I'd better jump out of the window and have it over."
"I'll send the bag," Laura quavered, "if you'll promise to come
back in two hours."
"I promise!"
Cora gave her a quick embrace, a quick kiss, and, dry-eyed, ran
out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the house.
She walked briskly down Corliss Street. It was a clear day, bright
noon, with an exhilarating tang in the air, and a sky so glorious
that people outdoors were continually conscious of the blue
overhead, and looked up at it often. An autumnal cheerfulness was
abroad, and pedestrians showed it in their quickened steps, in
their enlivened eyes, and frequent smiles, and in the colour of
their faces. But none showed more colour or a gayer look than
Cora. She encountered many whom she knew, for it was indeed a day
to be stirring, and she nodded and smiled her way all down the
long street, thinking of what these greeted people would say
to-morrow. "_I_ saw her yesterday, walking down Corliss Street,
about noon, in a gray suit and looking fairly radiant!" Some of
those she met were enemies she had chastened; she prophesied their
remarks with accuracy. Some were old suitors, men who had desired
her; one or two had place upon her long list of boy-sweethearts:
she gave the same gay, friendly nod to each of them, and foretold
his morrow's thoughts of her, in turn. Her greeting of Mary Kane
was graver, as was aesthetically appropriate, Mr. Wattling's
engagement having been broken by that lady, immediately after his
drive to the Country Club for tea. Cora received from the
beautiful jilt a salutation even graver than her own, which did
not confound her.
Halfway down the street was a drug-store. She went in, and
obtained appreciative permission to use the telephone. She came
out well satisfied, and went swiftly on her way. Ten minutes
later, she opened the door of Wade Trumble's office.
He was alone; her telephone had caught him in the act of departing
for lunch. But he had been glad to wait--glad to the verge of
agitation.
"By George, Cora!" he exclaimed, as she came quickly in and closed
the door, "but you _can_ look stunning! Believe me, that's some
get-up. But let me tell you right here and now, before you begin,
it's no use your tackling me again on the oil proposition. If
there was any chance of my going into it which there wasn't, not
one on earth--why, the very fact of your asking me would have
stopped me. I'm no Dick Lindley, I beg to inform you: I don't
spend my money helping a girl that I want, myself, to make a hit
with another man. You treated me like a dog about that, right in
the street, and you needn't try it again, because I won't stand
for it. You can't play _me_, Cora!"
"Wade," she said, coming closer, and looking at him mysteriously,
"didn't you tell me to come to you when I got through playing?"
"What?" He grew very red, took a step back from her, staring at
her distrustfully, incredulously.
"I've got through playing", she said in a low voice. "And I've
come to you."
He was staggered. "You've come----" he said, huskily.
"Here I am, Wade."
He had flushed, but now the colour left his small face, and he
grew very white. "I don't believe you mean it."
"Listen," she said. "I was rotten to you about that oil nonsense.
It _was_ nonsense, nothing on earth but nonsense. I tell you
frankly I was a fool. I didn't care the snap of my finger for
Corliss, but--oh, what's the use of pretending? You were always
such a great `business man,' always so absorbed in business, and
put it before everything else in the world. You cared for me, but
you cared for business more than for me. Well, no woman likes
_that_, Wade. I've come to tell you the whole thing: I can't stand
it any longer. I suffered horribly because--because----" She
faltered. "Wade, that was no way to _win_ a girl."
"Cora!" His incredulity was strong.
"I thought I hated you for it, Wade. Yes, I did think that; I'm
telling you everything, you see just blurting it out as it comes,
Wade. Well, Corliss asked me to help him, and it struck me I'd
show that I could understand a business deal, myself. Wade, this
is pretty hard to say, I was such a little fool, but you ought to
know it. You've got a right to know it, Wade: I thought if I put
through a thing like that, it would make a tremendous hit with
you, and that then I could say: `So this is the kind of thing you
put ahead of _me_, is it? Simple little things like this, that _I_
can do, myself, by turning over my little finger!' So I got
Richard to go in--that was easy; and then it struck me that the
crowning triumph of the whole thing would be to get you to come in
yourself. That _would_ be showing you, I thought! But you
wouldn't: you put me in my place--and I was angry--I never was so
angry in my life, and I showed it." Tears came into her voice.
"Oh, Wade," she said, softly, "it was the very wildness of my
anger that showed what I really felt."
"About--about _me_?" His incredulity struggled with his hope. He
stepped close to her.
"What an awful fool I've been," she sighed.
"Why, I thought I could show you I was your _equal_! And look what
it's got me into, Wade!"
"What has it got you into, Cora?"
"One thing worth while: I can see what I really am when I try to
meet you on your own ground." She bent her head, humbly, then
lifted it, and spoke rapidly. "All the rest is dreadful, Wade. I
had a distrust of Corliss from the first; I didn't like him, but I
took him up because I thought he offered the chance to show _you_
what I could do. Well, it's got me into a most horrible mess. He's
a swindler, a rank----"
"By George!" Wade shouted. "Cora, you're talking out now like a
real woman."
"Listen. I got horribly tired of him after a week or so, but I'd
promised to help him and I didn't break with him; but yesterday I
just couldn't stand him any longer and I told him so, and sent him
away. Then, this morning, an old man came to the house, a man
named Pryor, who knew him and knew his record, and he told me all
about him." She narrated the interview.
"But you had sent Corliss away first?" Wade asked, sharply.
"Yesterday, I tell you." She set her hand on the little man's
shoulder. "Wade, there's bound to be a scandal over all this. Even
if Corliss gets away without being arrested and tried, the whole
thing's bound to come _out_. I'll be the laughing-stock of the
town--and I deserve to be: it's all through having been ridiculous
idiot enough to try and impress you with my business brilliancy.
Well, I can't stand it!"
"Cora, do you----" He faltered.
She leaned toward him, her hand still on his shoulder, her
exquisite voice lowered, and thrilling in its sweetness. "Wade,
I'm through playing. I've come to you at last because you've
utterly conquered me. If you'll take me away to-day, I'll _marry_
you to-day!"
He gave a shout that rang again from the walls.
"Do you want me?" she whispered; then smiled upon his rapture
indulgently.
Rapture it was. With the word "marry," his incredulity sped
forever. But for a time he was incoherent: he leaped and hopped,
spoke broken bits of words, danced fragmentarily, ate her with his
eyes, partially embraced her, and finally kissed her timidly.
"Such a wedding we'll have!" he shouted, after that.
"No!" she said sharply. "We'll be married by a Justice of the
Peace and not a soul there but us, and it will be now, or it never
will be! If you don't----"
He swore she should have her way.
"Then we'll be out of this town on the three o'clock train this
afternoon," she said. She went on with her plans, while he,
growing more accustomed to his privilege, caressed her as he
would. "You shall have your way," she said, "in everything except
the wedding-journey. That's got to be a long one--I won't come
back here till people have forgotten all about this Corliss
mix-up. I've never been abroad, and I want you to take me. We can
stay a long, long time. I've brought nothing--we'll get whatever
we want in New York before we sail."
He agreed to everything. He had never really hoped to win her;
paradise had opened, dazing him with glory: he was astounded, mad
with joy, and abjectly his lady's servant.
"Hadn't you better run along and get the license?" she laughed.
"We'll have to be married on the way to the train." "Cora!" he
gasped. "You angel!"
"I'll wait here for you," she smiled. "There won't be too much
time."
He obtained a moderate control of his voice and feet.
"Enfield--that's my cashier--he'll be back from his lunch at
one-thirty. Tell him about us, if I'm not here by then. Tell him
he's got to manage somehow. Good-bye till I come back Mrs.
Trumble!"
At the door he turned. "Oh, have you--you----" He paused
uncertainly. "Have you sent Richard Lindley any word about----"
"Wade!" She gave his inquiry an indulgent amusement. "If I'm not
worrying about him, do you think you need to?"
"I meant about----"
"You funny thing," she said. "I never had any idea of really
marrying him; it wasn't anything but one of those silly
half-engagements, and----"
"I didn't mean that," he said, apologetically. "I meant about
letting him know what this Pryor told you about Corliss, so that
Richard might do something toward getting his money back. We ought
to--"
"Oh, yes," she said quickly. "Yes, that's all right."
"You saw Richard?"
"No. I sent him a note. He knows all about it by this time, if he
has been home this morning. You'd better start, Wade. Send a
messenger to our house for my bag. Tell him to bring it here and
then take a note for me. You'd really better start--dear!"
"_Cora_!" he shouted, took her in his arms, and was gone. His
departing gait down the corridor to the elevator seemed, from the
sounds, to be a gallop.
Left alone, Cora wrote, sealed, and directed a note to Laura. In
it she recounted what Pryor had told her of Corliss; begged Laura
and her parents not to think her heartless in not preparing them
for this abrupt marriage. She was in such a state of nervousness,
she wrote, that explanations would have caused a breakdown. The
marriage was a sensible one; she had long contemplated it as a
possibility; and, after thinking it over thoroughly, she had
decided it was the only thing to do. She sent her undying love.
She was sitting with this note in her hand when shuffling
footsteps sounded in the corridor; either Wade's cashier or the
messenger, she supposed. The door-knob turned, a husky voice
asking, "Want a drink?" as the door opened.
Cora was not surprised--she knew Vilas's office was across the
hall from that in which she waited--but she was frightened.
Ray stood blinking at her.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, at last.