Quin Part 42

Eleanor did not answer; she sat doggedly watching the swinging doors, through which a draggled throng came and went.

"He'll be here soon," she said half-heartedly--"unless he's gone off for a week-end somewhere. If he doesn't come soon we can go up to the hotel and find out whether he left any address. Perhaps you could get me a room there until to-morrow."

Quin's courage was at its lowest ebb. It was like trying to save a drowning person who fights desperately against being saved. He heard a stentorian voice through a megaphone announcing that the eight-thirty train for the southwest would leave in five minutes on track three, and he decided to stake his all on a last chance.

"That's my train," he said, rising briskly. "Are you coming with me, or are you going to stay here?"

"I am going to stay. But you can't leave me like this! It's pouring rain and I haven't any umbrella, and if I get to the hotel and he isn't there, what shall I do? Why don't you help me, Quin? Why don't you stay with me till he comes?"

"Sorry," said Quin, steeling his heart against those appealing eyes and praying for strength to be firm, "but I've got to be ready to go back to work to-morrow morning. Is it good-by?"

He held out his hand, but she did not take it. Instead she clutched his sleeve.

"What would _you_ do, Quin?" she asked. "Tell me honestly, not what you want me to do, or think I ought to do, but what would you do in my place?"

In spite of his pretended haste, he stopped to consider the matter.

"Well," he admitted frankly, "it would depend entirely on how much I trusted the fellow I'd promised to marry."

"I _do_ trust him, and I'm going to marry him; but, you see, Rose's telegram, and his not being here, and all, have made me so unhappy! I know he can explain everything when I see him, only I don't know what to do now. Do you think I ought to go back?"

"That's for you to decide."

"But I tell you I can't decide. Somebody's always made up my mind for me, and now to have to decide this big thing all in a minute----"

"All aboard for the Southwestern Limited!" came the voice through the megaphone.

Eleanor glanced instinctively at her suit-case, then up at Quin.

"Shall I take it?" he asked, with his heart in his throat; and then, when she did not say no, he seized it in one hand and her in the other.

"We'd better run for it!" he said.

"But, Quin--wait a minute--I won't go to grandmother's! You've got to protect me----"

"You leave it to me!" he said, as he thrust her almost roughly through the crowd and rushed her toward the gate.

CHAPTER 26

"So I am to understand that the young lady defies my authority and refuses point-blank to come home."

"That's about what it comes to, I reckon."

It was evening of that eventful Sunday when Eleanor and Quin had returned from Chicago. He and Madam Bartlett sat facing each other in the sepulchral library, where the green reading-light cast its sickly light on Lincoln and his Cabinet, on Andrew Jackson dying in the bosom of his family, on Madam savagely gripping the lions' heads on the arms of her mahogany chair.

That her quarrel with Eleanor and the girl's subsequent flight had made the old lady suffer was evinced by the pinched look of her nostrils and the heavy, sagging lines about her mouth; but in her grim old eyes there was no sign of compromise.

"Very well!" she said. "Let her stay at her precious Martels'. She will stand just about one week of their shiftlessness. I shan't send her a st.i.tch of clothes or a cent of money. Maybe I can starve some sense into her."

Quin traced the pattern in the table-cover with a ma.s.sive bra.s.s paper-knife. It was a delicate business, this he had committed himself to, and everything depended upon his keeping Madam's confidence.

"You never did try letting her have her head, did you?" He put the question as a disinterested observer.

"No. I don't intend to until she gets this fool stage business out of her mind."

"Well, of course you can hold that up for six months, but you can't stop it in the end."

"Yes, I can, too. I'd like to know if I didn't keep Isobel from being a missionary, and Enid from marrying Francis Chester when he didn't make enough money to pay her carfare."

"That's so," agreed Quin cheerfully. "And then, there was Mr. Ranny." He waited for the remark to sink in; then he went on lightly: "But say! They all belong to another generation. Things are run on different lines these days."

"More's the pity! Every little fool of a kite thinks all it has to do is to break its string to be free."

"Miss Nell don't want to break the string; she just wants it lengthened."

Madam turned upon him fiercely.

"See here, young man. You think I don't know what you are up to; but, remember, I wasn't born yesterday. If Eleanor has sent you up here to talk this New York stuff----"

"She hasn't; I came of my own accord."

"Well, you needn't think just because I've shown you a few favors that you can meddle in family affairs. It's not the first time you've attended to other people's business."

Her fingers were working nervously and her eyes beginning to twitch. She made Quin think of Minerva when Mr. Bangs came into the office.

"I bet there's one time you are glad I meddled," he said with easy good humor. "You might have been walking on a peg-stick, Queen Vic, if I hadn't b.u.t.ted in. Do you have to use your crutches now?"

"Crutches! I should say not. I don't even use a cane. See here!"

She rose and, steadying herself, walked slowly and painfully to the door and back.

"Bully for you!" said Quin, helping her back into the chair. "Now what were we talking about?"

"You were trying to hold a brief for Eleanor."

"So I was. You see, I had an idea that if you'd let me put the case up to you fair and square, maybe you'd see it in a different light."

"Well, that's where you were mistaken."

"How do you know? You haven't listened to me yet!"

Madam glared at him grimly.

"Go ahead," he said. "Get it out of your system."