Linda Lee, Incorporated Part 22

"Your bill, ma'm."

Not Bel's voice. Still it might be a trick. When she forced herself to turn key and k.n.o.b, she more than half expected to see her husband. But the bellboy was alone. Lucinda took the bill and was counting out the money, when the telephone began to trill again.

"Take those bags, please," she said, indicating the new dressing-case and the bag which she had brought from New York, "put them in a taxi at the door, and hold it till I come down. I shan't be long."

Alone, she answered the telephone.

"h.e.l.lo? That you, Linda? It's I, Bel."

"Y-yes, I--I know."

"Thank G.o.d, I've found you! See here: I'm coming up, if you don't mind.

All right?"

"Yes, Bellamy--it--it's all right."

Running out into the hall, she found the stairs and pelted up two flights. One of the elevators was rising. It stopped two floors below, then came on up in response to her ring. The attendant whom she had tipped so well was in charge, and there was n.o.body else in the car.

"Did you let somebody out at my floor?"

"Yes, ma'm, gempman."

"Take me down, please, without stopping."

The car dropped with sickening rapidity, and she stepped out into the foyer, but only to realize in consternation the flat futility of her strategem when Bel placed himself before her, blocking the way to the street.

Her heart checked and raced, she was oddly at once aghast and elated.

She couldn't be sorry her ruse had failed, subconsciously she had wanted all along to see Bel, just for a minute, face to face, with her own eyes to see how he looked, how her flight had affected him, whether ill or well.

Though he seemed to be quite himself, neither under the influence of nor suffering from recent indulgence in drink, his face looked thinner, his eyes a trifle more deeply set in his head; and there was new firmness in the set of his mouth.

In this new guise, the old appeal was strong. For a s.p.a.ce of several beats her heart misgave her....

In a matter-of-course way Bel offered a hand, and Lucinda touched it mechanically.

"Sorry, Linda, if I disappointed you, but thought I recognized your handbag being carried to the door, and waited for this car to come down on the off-chance...."

"I see," she articulated with an effort.

"Hope you're not angry...." Bel smiled as if he read her weakness, smiled with a fatal trace of over-confidence. "Had to see you, couldn't let you get away without giving me a hearing, after all the trouble I've had finding you."

"It's too late, I'm afraid--this isn't the place, either, to discuss such matters. Besides, I'm in a great hurry."

"You can give me a few minutes, surely. If you'll step into the reception-room with me for a minute----"

"Bel: I tell you it's too late."

Struggling to keep his temper, Bel caught his underlip between his teeth, while Lucinda cast witlessly about her for some way of escape.

None offered. But she noticed that a young man standing nearby was observing them with keen interest, a rather brilliantly good-looking young man, brilliantly well dressed. As Lucinda's glance rested transiently on him, his face brightened with a tentative smile, and she thought he started as if he were impulsively minded to approach. If so, he reconsidered instantly. With a frown she looked back to Bel.

He made a gesture of entreaty. "You can't put me off like this, Linda, when I've come so far, gone through so much----"

"I can because I must, Bel--I will."

"No, by G.o.d! you can't and shan't!"

He caught her arm lightly as she tried to pa.s.s. She stopped, her face hardening.

"Are you going to make another scene, publicly disgrace me again even when sober?"

His hand dropped to his side. Lucinda began to walk rapidly toward the street entrance, but had taken few steps when Bellamy ranged alongside.

"Linda: you've _got_ to listen to me! There's something I've got to tell you----"

"Then go back to New York and tell it to Harford Willis. If it's anything I want to hear, he will write me."

"Harford Willis! What's he--!" The significance of her words seemed to come to Bel all at once. "You don't mean to say you're going--! You can't be meaning to--!" With a long stride Bel swung in front of her again at the head of the stairs to the street. "At least, tell me what you mean to do."

"I mean to go to Reno, as soon as you let me pa.s.s."

Bellamy's eyes narrowed as if in physical pain. He threw out a hand of inarticulate protest, and let it fall in despair. Subduing a strong desire to bolt for it, Lucinda began to descend at a pace not inconsistent with dignity. At the same time, sensitiveness to the situation, the feeling that they had been playing a scene of intimate domestic drama for the edification of an entire hotel, made her aware that the young man whose interest had first manifested near the elevators had followed and was now standing at the head of the steps, over across from Bellamy.

Pushing through the door, she breathed thankfully the stinging winter air. The canopy lamps made the sidewalk bright and discovered her bellboy shivering by the open door of a taxicab. As she moved toward it she heard the revolving door behind her buffet the air, then Bel's voice crying out her name.

Abandoning all pretense, Lucinda ran. The bellboy caught her arm to help her into the cab and chattered: "W-where t-t-to, m'm?" She was prevented from answering by Bel, who elbowed the boy aside and caught her by the shoulders.

"No!" he cried violently. "No, you shan't--d'you hear?--you shan't go without listening to me!"

By some means, she did not know quite how, Lucinda broke out of his hands and stepped back.

"Let me alone!" she insisted. "Let me----"

Somebody came between them. Startled, she identified the strange young man of the foyer.

"Can I be of service?" he suggested in an amused drawl.

Instinctively she gasped: "No, please--!" At the same time Bel tried to shoulder the other roughly out of his way; the gratuitous champion stood firm, merely counselling "Easy, old thing, easy!" Then Bel lost his head. Lucinda heard him d.a.m.ning the other. There was a slight scuffle, in which the two, locked in each other's arms, reeled to one side. The bellboy was shouting "Now, ma'm--now's your chance!" She stumbled into the taxi. Holding the door, the boy demanded: "Where to, ma'm--where to?" She gasped: "Anywhere--only, tell him, hurry!" The door crashed, gears meshed with a grinding screech, the cab leaped forward with such spirit that Lucinda was thrown heavily against the back of the seat.

When she recovered, the vehicle was turning a corner. Through its window she caught a glimpse of the sidewalk in front of the Blackstone, just a bare glimpse of two figures struggling, with several others running toward them. Then the corner blocked out the scene.

XVII

Darting and dodging through traffic-choked thoroughfares, the taxicab had travelled a mile and more before Lucinda felt able to give the next steps the careful consideration which this pinch of mischance imposed.