Adrian Ducie looked in startled amazement down into her white, drawn
face with its hollow, appealing eyes, and quivering lips that could not
enunciate a word. He did not recognize her for one moment. Then his
expression hardened, and his gaze grew steady. With dextrous fingers he
took his hat from his head and his cigar from his lips with one hand,
for she held the other arm with a grip as of steel. The moony luster of
the electric lights shone down upon a scene as silent and as motionless
as if, Gorgon-like, her entrance had stricken it into stone; the groups
of men who had been smoking standing about the floor, the loungers in
the armchairs, the clerks behind the counter were for the moment as if
petrified, blankly staring.
“What can I do for you?” Adrian asked courteously, and the calm, clear
tones of his voice pervaded the silence like the tones of a bell.
In her keen sensitiveness she noted the absence of any form of greeting
or salutation. He would not call her name for the enlightenment of these
gazing strangers in this public place, in the scene she had made. Oh,
how could she have so demeaned herself, she wondered, as to need such
protection, such observance on his part of the delicacy she had
disregarded. She despised herself to have incurred the necessity, yet
with both her little gloved hands she clung to his arm with a convulsive
strength of grasp which he could not have shaken off without a struggle
that would have much edified the gazing crowd, all making their own
inferences as to the unknown significance of the scene. Such good
breeding as it individually possessed had begun to assert itself against
the shock and numbing effects of surprise, and there was the sound of
movement and the murmur of resumed conversation which induced Adrian
Ducie to hope that the one word she suddenly gasped had not been
overheard.
“Randal,” she began in a broken voice, and the look in his eyes struck
her dumb. They held a spark of actual fire that scorched every delicate
sensibility within her. But it was like the ignition of a fuse--it set
the whole train of gunpowder into potentiality. With sudden intention he
looked over his shoulder and signaled to a gentleman at a little
distance, staring, too, but not in the least recognizing Mrs.
Floyd-Rosney.
“We will go into the reception room and talk the matter over,” he said
decisively. “Colonel Kenwynton will give us the benefit of his advice.”
Colonel Kenwynton had been trained in the school of maneuvers and
strategy. Off came his hat from his old white head, and with a resonant
“Certainly! Certainly!” he advanced on the other side of Paula, who
noticed that he followed Ducie’s example and did not speak her name.
“Good evening, good evening, madam, I trust I see you well!” was surely
salutation enough to satisfy the most exacting requirements of
etiquette.
Scarcely able to move, yet never for one instant relaxing her hold on
Ducie’s arm, she suffered herself to be led, half supported, to the
reception room, where she sank into an armchair while Ducie stood
looking down at her.
“Oh, Mr. Ducie,” she cried plangently, “I had hoped to find Randal
here--his arrival was in the paper. I am in such terrible trouble, and I
know my old friend would feel for me. Oh, he loved me once! I know he
would help me now!”
“I will do whatever Randal could,” said Ducie. His voice was suave and
kind, but his face was stern, and doubtful, and inquiring.
“Oh, you look so like him--you might have a heart like his. But you are
not like him. Oh, I have not another friend in the world!”
Adrian thought she had not deserved to account Randal Ducie her friend.
But this was no occasion to make nice and formal distinctions. He only
said:
“Randal is not in town. But if you will give me the opportunity to be of
use to you, Mrs. Floyd-Rosney, I will do anything I can.”
Both her auditors thought for a moment that she was insane when she
replied:
“I want you to lend me ten dollars.”
The two men exchanged a glance. Then Ducie heartily declared:
“Why, that is very easily done. But may I ask, Mrs. Floyd-Rosney, what
use you wish to make of it?”
He was thinking the trifling sum was yet sufficient to work mischief if
she were under some temporary aberration.
“I want to go to my aunt’s place in the uplands of Mississippi--my old
home! Oh, how I wish I had never left it!”
She threw herself back in the chair and pressed her handkerchief to her
streaming eyes. “Mr. Ducie, I have fled from my husband’s house. He has
taken my child from me--spirited him away--and I don’t know where he is,
nor how he will be cared for. He is only three years old--oh, just a
little thing!”
“Mrs. Floyd-Rosney, you must control your voice,” said Ducie,
embarrassed and reluctant. “I hate to say it--but you will bring the
whole house about us.”
Once launched on a recital of her woes she had acquired a capacity to
arrange her ideas, and was keenly noting the effect of her words. There
was no alacrity to produce the money she had requested as a loan,
corresponding to the prompt acquiescence of Adrian Ducie a moment or so
ago. She marveled in humble anxiety, not knowing that the two men
doubted her mental responsibility, and feared to trust her with money.
Her griefs, once released, strained for expression, and she went on in a
meek, muffled tone that brought the tears to the old Colonel’s pitying
eyes--his heart had grown very soft with advancing years--but Adrian
Ducie held himself well in hand and regarded her with critical
dispassionateness.
“My husband desires, for some reason which he does not explain, but
which I suspect, to get me out of the country.”
Once more Colonel Kenwynton and Ducie exchanged a covert glance of
comment.
“He has arranged an extensive European and Oriental tour for me--without
my child--leaving my child for a year at least. Why, Colonel Kenwynton,
tell me what would all the glories of foreign capitals and all the
associations of Palestine count for with me when the one little face
that I care to see is far away, and the one little voice I cannot hear!”
“Oh, my dear madam”--the Colonel had a frog in his throat--“surely Mr.
Floyd-Rosney would not insist. You must be mistaken!”
“Oh, it is all arranged--my passage taken; my letter of credit ready; my
party--such a gay party--made up and prepared to start to-morrow, the
Hardingtons----”
The Colonel’s face bore a sudden look of conviction.
“I recollect now--it had slipped my memory--Mr. Charles Hardington was
telling me this evening of the tour his family have in contemplation,
and he mentioned that they were to have the great pleasure of your
company, starting to-morrow.”
“Oh, but I will not go! I will not!” cried Paula, springing from her
chair and frantically clasping her hands. “I will not go without my
child! If you will not help me I will hide in the streets--but he could
find me and--as I have not one friend--he could lock me up as insane!”
She turned her wild eyes from one to the other. Then she broke into a
jeering laugh. “It would be very easy in this day to prove a woman
insane who does not prefer the tawdry follies and frivolities of gadding
and staring through Europe with a party of fashionable empty-pates to
the care and companionship of her only child. But I will not! I will not
be shipped out of the country!”
Adrian Ducie’s face had changed. He believed that Floyd-Rosney was
capable of any domestic tyranny, but however he moved the
responsibility involved in her appeal was great. He could not consign
her to whatever fate might menace her. Still, he dared not trust her
with money. She might buy poison, she might buy a pistol.
“Colonel, we must do something,” he declared. Then he turned to her.
“Mrs. Floyd-Rosney,” he said, “will you permit us, instead of handing
you the small amount you mentioned, to buy your ticket for your aunt’s
home and see you aboard the train?”
In one moment her face was radiant.
“Oh, if you only would! If you only would! I should bless and thank you
to the end of my days!”
Adrian Ducie, with a clearing brow, crossed the room and touched the
bell. The summons was answered so immediately as to suggest the
prompting of a lurking curiosity.
“Time-table,” said Ducie, and when it was brought he rid himself of the
officious bell-boy by commanding: “Taxi, at the ladies’ entrance.”
“We must be starting at once,” he said to Paula. “We have barely time to
catch the train. Bring the lady’s suitcase,” to the returning servant;
and to the veteran: “Come, Colonel, you will kindly accompany us.”
Then they took their way out into the night.
Paula felt as if she trod on air. It had been so long since she had done
aught of her own initiative, so little liberty had she possessed, even
in trifles, that it gave her a sense of power to be able to carry any
plan of her own device into successful execution. She was suddenly
hopeful, calm, confident of her judgment, and restored to her normal
aspect and manner. As they stood for a moment on the sidewalk, while
the cab came chugging to the curb, she looked as with the eyes of a
restored vitality upon the familiar surroundings--the electric street
lights, the brilliant, equidistant points far down the perspective, the
fantastic illuminated advertisements, the tall canyon of the buildings,
the obstructive passing of a clanging, whirring street car, and then she
was handed into the vehicle by Adrian Ducie. The next moment the door
banged, and she was shut in with the two who she felt were so
judiciously befriending her. The taxicab backed out into the street and
was off for Union Station at a speed as rapid as a liberal construction
of the law would allow.
There was no word said, and for that she was grateful. Her eyes stung as
if blistered by the bitter tears she had shed, but not for one moment
would she let the restful lids fall, lest the face of the man before her
vanish in the awakening from this dream of rescue. She watched the
fluctuations of light on Ducie’s countenance as the arc lamp at every
street intersection illuminated it, for she found a source of
refreshment in its singular likeness to the one friend, she told
herself, she had in the world. Adrian would not have lent himself as he
had done to her aid, she felt sure, were he not Randal’s brother. She
had been vaguely sensible of a reluctance that was to her inexplicable,
of a reserve in both the men before her, that seemed to her inimical to
her interest. She would venture no word to jar the accord they had
attained.
When the taxicab drew up at the Union Station the glare of lights, the
stir of the place enthused her. She was here at last, on her way,
success almost attained. She did not share Ducie’s sudden fever of
anxiety in noting the great outpouring of smoke from the shed where the
train stood almost ready to start, the resonance of its bell and the
clamors of the exhaust steam of the engine already beginning to jar the
air. He ran swiftly up the stair to the ticket office, leaving her with
Colonel Kenwynton, and was back almost immediately, taking her
protectively by the arm as he urged her along into the great shed. At
the gate she was surprised to see that he presented three tickets, but
he voluntarily explained, not treating her as an unreasoning child, as
was Floyd-Rosney’s habit, that he thought it best that he and the
Colonel should accompany her to the first station, to see her fairly
clear of the city. He was saying this as they walked swiftly down
between the many rows of rails in the great shed where a number of cars
were standing, and the train which she was to take was beginning to move
slowly forward.
Her heart sank as she marked its progress, but Ducie lifted his arm and
signed eagerly to the conductor just mounting the front step of the
Pullman. The train slowed down a bit; the stool was placed by the alert
porter, but the step passed before she could put her foot upon it. Ducie
caught her up and swung her to the next platform as it glided by, and
the two men clambered aboard as the cars went on.
They were laughing and elated as they conveyed her into its shelter.
Then a deep shade settled on the face of the Colonel.
“Why, my dear madam, you have no luncheon!” He regarded the suitcase
with reprobation, as affording no opportunities of refreshment, save of
the toilette.
“But, Colonel, I don’t lunch throughout the night,” she returned, with a
smile. “I shall be glad to sleep,” she added plaintively.
The Colonel looked disconsolate for a moment. Then he took a handsome
little flask from his pocket. “With my best compliments,” he said.
“But I don’t drink brandy, either,” she declared, strangely flattered,
“and I have no pistol pocket.”
“Tuck it in your suitcase,” he insisted seriously. “Something might
happen. You might--might--see fit to faint, you know.”
“Oh, no, I never faint,” she protested. “If I haven’t fainted so far I
shall hold my own the rest of the way.”
As they sat in the section which Ducie had reserved for her the Colonel
eyed him enigmatically, as if referring something for his approval. Then
he said bluffly:
“I am sorry I haven’t the ten dollars which you did us the honor to wish
to borrow. I have nothing less than a twenty, that you can get changed
by the conductor and return to me at your good pleasure. I’m getting
rich, Mrs. Floyd-Rosney,” he laughed gaily, at the incongruity of the
jest. “And I never carry anything but large bills.”
He took the little empty mesh bag from her hand and slipped the money in
it, despite her protest that she had now no need of it.
“It is never prudent to travel without an emergency fund,” he opined
sagaciously. “My affairs are managed by Hugh Treherne now, for a share
of the proceeds. He did not want any compensation at all, but I
insisted on it. Wonderful head for detail he has, Ducie. I’d go to the
asylum and stay there a term or two if it would educate me to make every
edge cut as he can.”
When they had alighted on the platform of the first station and stood
lifting their hats, as her pale face looked out of the window while the
train glided on, Colonel Kenwynton spoke his mind.
“She is as sane as I am, and a fine, well-bred woman. She has married a
brute of a husband, and if I were not such an excellent Christian,
Ducie, I don’t know what I wouldn’t wish might happen to him.”
Ducie said nothing. Floyd-Rosney was a distasteful subject that he was
averse to discuss. They took their places in the electric street car
which would whisk them back to town speedily, and, as the train slowly
backed on the switch, she saw them through the window, as yet the sole
occupants on the return run.