The intended victim of Lady Clifton-Wyatt's little lynching-bee walked
away, holding her head high. But she felt the noose still about her
neck and wondered when the rope would draw her back and up.
Marie Louise marched through Mrs. Prothero's hall in excellent form,
with just the right amount of dizziness to justify her escape on the
plea of sudden illness. The butler, like a benign destiny, opened the
door silently and let her out into the open as once before in London a
butler had opened a door and let her into the welcome refuge of
walls.
She gulped the cool night air thirstily, and it gave her courage.
But it gave her no wisdom. She had indeed got away from Lady
Clifton-Wyatt's direct accusation of being a spy and she had brought
with her unscathed the only man whose good opinion was important to
her. But she did not know what she wanted to do with him, except that
she did not want him to fall into Lady Clifton-Wyatt's hands--in
which she had left her reputation.
Polly Widdicombe would have gone after Marie Louise forthwith, but
Polly did not intend to leave her pet foewoman in possession of the
field--not that she loved Marie Louise more, but that she loved Lady
Clifton-Wyatt less. Polly was dazed and bewildered by Marie Louise's
defection, but she would not accept Lady Clifton-Wyatt's version of
this story or of any other.
Besides, Polly gleaned that Marie Louise wanted to be alone, and she
knew that the best gift friendship can bestow at times is solitude.
The next best gift is defense in absence. Polly announced that she
would not permit her friend to be traduced; and Lady Clifton-Wyatt,
seeing that the men had flocked in from the dining-room and knowing
that men always discount one woman's attack on another as mere
cattiness, assumed her most angelic mien and changed the subject.
* * * * *
As usual in retreats, the first problem was transportation. Marie
Louise found herself and Davidge outside Mrs. Prothero's door, with no
means of getting to Rosslyn. She had come in the Widdicombe car;
Davidge had come in a hotel cab and sent it away. Luckily at last a
taxi returning to the railroad terminal whizzed by. Davidge yelled in
vain. Then he put his two fingers to his mouth and let out a short
blast that brought the taxi-driver round. In accordance with the
traffic rules, he had to make the circuit of the big statue-crowned
circle in front of Mrs. Prothero's home, one of those numerous hubs
that give Washington the effect of what some one called "revolving
streets."
When he drew up at the curb Davidge's first question was:
"How's your gasolene supply?"
"Full up, boss."
Marie Louise laughed. "You don't want to spend another night in a taxi
with me, I see."
Davidge writhed at this deduction. He started to say, "I'd be glad to
spend the rest of my life in a taxi with you." That sounded a little
too flamboyant, especially with a driver listening in. So he said
nothing but "Huh!"
He explained to the driver the route to Grinden Hall, and they set
forth.
Marie Louise had a dilemma of her own. Lady Clifton-Wyatt had had the
last word, and it had been an invitation to Davidge to call on her.
Worse yet, he had accepted it. Lady Clifton-Wyatt's purpose was, of
course, to rob Marie Louise of this last friend. Perhaps the wretch
had a sentimental interest in Davidge, too. She was a widow and a
man-grabber; she still had a tyrannic beauty and a greed of conquest.
Marie Louise was determined that Davidge should not fall into her
clutches, but she could hardly exact a promise from him to stay away.
The taxi was crossing the aqueduct bridge before she could brave
the point. She was brazen enough to say, "You'll accept Lady
Clifton-Wyatt's invitation to tea, of course?"
"Oh, I suppose so," said Davidge. "No American woman can resist a
lord; so how could an American man resist a Lady?"
"Oh!"
This helpless syllable expressed another defeat for Marie Louise. When
they reached the house she bade him good night without making any
arrangement for a good morrow, though Davidge held her hand decidedly
longer than ever before.
She stood on the portico and watched his cab drive off. She gazed
toward Washington and did not see the dreamy constellation it made
with the shaft of the Monument ghostly luminous as if with a
phosphorescence of its own. She felt an outcast indeed. She imagined
Polly hurrying back to ask questions that could not be dodged any
longer. She had no right to defend herself offensively from the
rightful demands of a friend and hostess. Besides, the laws of
hospitality would not protect her from Polly's temper. Polly would
have a perfect right to order her from the house. And she would, too,
when she knew everything. It would be best to decamp before being
asked to.
Marie Louise whirled and sped into the house, rang for the maid, and
said:
"My trunks! Please have them brought down--or up, from wherever they
are, will you?"
"Your trunks, miss!"
"And a taxicab. I shall have to leave at once."
"But--oh, I am sorry. Shall I help you pack?"
"Thank you, no--yes--no!"
The maid went out with eyes popping, wondering what earthquake had
sent the guest home alone for such a headlong exit.
Things flew in the drowsy house, and Marie Louise's chamber looked
like the show-room of a commercial traveler for a linen-house when
Polly appeared at the door and gasped:
"What in the name of--I didn't know you were sick enough to be
delirious!"
She came forward through an archipelago of clothes to where Marie
Louise was bending over a trunk. Polly took an armload of things away
from her and put them back in the highboy. As she set her arms akimbo
and stood staring at Marie Louise with a lovable and loving insolence,
she heard the sound of a car rattling round the driveway, and her
first words were:
"Who's coming here at this hour?"
"That's the taxi for me," Marie Louise explained.
Polly turned to the maid, "Go down and send it away--no, tell the
driver to go to the asylum for a strait-jacket."
The maid smiled and left. Marie Louise was afraid to believe her own
hopes.
"You don't mean you want me to stay, do you--not after what that woman
said?"
"Do you imagine for a moment," returned Polly, "that I'd ever believe
a word that cat could utter? Good Lord! if Lady Clifton-Wyatt told me
it was raining and I could see it was, I'd know it wasn't and put down
my umbrella."
Marie Louise rejoiced at the trust implied, but she could not make a
fool of so loyal a friend. She spoke with difficulty:
"What if what she said was the truth, or, anyway, a kind of burlesque
of it?"
"Marie Louise!" Polly gasped, and plounced into a chair. "Tell me the
truth this minute, the true truth."
Marie Louise was perishing for a confidante. She had gone about as far
without one as a normal woman can. She sat wondering how to begin,
twirling her rings on her fingers. "Well, you see--you see--it is true
that I'm not Sir Joseph's daughter. I was born in a little village--in
America--Wakefield--out there in the Middle West. I ran away from
home, and--"
She hesitated, blanched, blushed, skipped over the years she tried not
to think of and managed never to speak of. She came down to:
"Well, anyway, at last I was in Berlin--on the stage--"
"You were an actress?" Polly gasped.
Marie Louise confessed, "Well, I'd hardly say that."
She told Polly what she had told Mr. Verrinder of the appearance of
Sir Joseph and Lady Webling, of their thrill at her resemblance to
their dead daughter, of their plea that she leave the stage and enter
their family, of her new life, and the outbreak of the war.
Major Widdicombe pounded on the door and said: "Are you girls going to
talk all night? I've got to get up at seven and save the country."
Polly cried to him, "Go away," and to Marie Louise, "Go on."
Marie Louise began again, but just as she reached the first suspicions
of Sir Joseph's loyalty she remembered the oath she had plighted to
Verrinder and stopped short.
"I forgot! I can't!"
Polly groaned: "Oh, my God! You're not going to stop there! I loathe
serials."
Marie Louise shook her head. "If only I could tell you; but I just
can't! That's all; I can't!"
Polly turned her eyes up in despair. "Well, I might as well go to bed,
I suppose. But I sha'n't sleep a wink. Tell me one thing, though. You
weren't really a German spy, were you?"
"No, no! Of course not! I loathe everything German."
"Well, let the rest rest, then. So long as Lady Clifton-Wyatt is a
liar I can stand the strain. If you had been a spy, I suppose I'd have
to shoot you or something; but so long as you're not, you don't budge
out of this house. Is that understood?"
Marie Louise nodded with a pathetic gratitude, and Polly stamped a
kiss on her brow like a notarial seal.