The Fighting Chance Part 81

"Table! As though tables mattered on a night like this!" Then with sudden self-reproach and quick solicitude: "Am I making you walk too far? Wouldn't you like to go in now?"

"No, I'm not tired; I'm millions of years younger, and I'm as strong as the nine G.o.ds of your friend Porsena. Besides, haven't I waited for this?" and under his breath, fiercely, "Haven't I waited!" he repeated, turning on her.

"Do--do you mean that as a reproach?" she asked, lowering her eyes.

"No. I knew you would not come on 'the first sunny day.'"

"Why did you think I would not come? Did you know me for the coward I am?"

"I did not think you would come," he repeated, halting to rest on his crutches. He stood, balanced, staring dreamily into the dim perspective; and again her fascinated eyes ventured to rest on the worn, white face, listless, sombre in its fixedness.

The tears were very near her eyes; the spasm in her throat checked speech. At length she stammered: "I did not come b-because I simply couldn't stand it!"

His face cleared as he turned quietly: "Child, you must not confuse matters. You must not think of being sorry for me. The old order is pa.s.sing--ticking away on every clock in the world. All that inverted order of things is being reversed. You don't know what I mean, do you?

Ah, well; you will know when I grow into something of what you think you remember in me, and when I grow out of what I really was."

"Truly I don't understand, Stephen. But then--I am out of training since you went--went out of things. Have I changed? Do I seem more dull? I--it has not been very gay with me. I don't see--looking back across all the noise, all the chaos of the winter--I do not see how I stood it alone."

"Alone?"

"N-not seeing you--sometimes."

He looked at her with smiling, sceptical eyes. "Didn't you enjoy the winter?"

"Do you enjoy being drugged with champagne?"

His face altered so quickly that, confused, she only stared at him, the fixed smile stamped on her lips; then, overwhelmed in the revelation:

"Stephen, surely, surely you know what I meant! I did not mean that!

Dear, do you dream for one moment that--that I could--"

"No. You have not hurt me. Besides, I know what you mean."

After a moment he swung forward on his crutches, biting his lip, the frown gathering between his temples.

They were pa.s.sing the big, old-fashioned hotel with its white facade and green blinds, a lingering landmark of the older city.

"We'll telephone here," he said.

Side by side they went up the great, broad stoop and entered the lobby.

"If you'll speak to Leila, I'll get Plank on the wire. Say that we'll stop for you at seven."

She gave her number; then, at the nod of the operator, entered a small booth. Siward was given another booth in a few moments.

Plank answered from his office; his voice sounded grave and tired but it quickened, tinged with surprise, when Siward made known his plan for the evening.

"Is Mrs. Mortimer in town?" he demanded. "I had a wire from her that she expected to be here and I hoped to see her at the station to-morrow on her way to Lenox."

"She's stopping with Miss Landis. Can't you manage to come?" asked Siward anxiously.

"I don't know. Do you wish it particularly? I have just seen Quarrier and Harrington. I can't quite understand Quarrier's att.i.tude. There's a certain hint of defiance about it. Harrington is all caved in. He is ready to thank us for any mercies. But Quarrier--there's something I don't fancy, don't exactly understand about his att.i.tude. He's like a dangerous man whom you've searched for concealed weapons, and who knows you've overlooked the knife up his sleeve. That's why I've expected to spend a quiet evening, studying up the matter and examining every loophole."

"You've got to dine somewhere," said Siward. "If you could fix it to dine with us--But I won't urge you."

"All right. I don't know why I shouldn't. I don't know why I feel this way about things. I--I rather felt--you'll laugh, Siward!--that somehow I'd better not go out of my own house to-night; that I was safer, better off in my own house, studying this Quarrier matter out. I'm tired, I suppose; and this man Quarrier has come close to worrying me. But it's all right, of course, if you wish it. You know I haven't any nerves."

"If you are tired--" began Siward.

"No, no, I'm not. I'll go. Will you say that we'll stop for them at seven? Really, it's all right, Siward."

"I don't want to urge you," repeated Siward.

"You're not. I'll go. But--wait one moment tell me, did Quarrier know that Mrs. Mortimer was to stop with Miss Landis?"

"Wait a moment. Hold the wire."

He opened the door of the booth and saw Sylvia waiting for him, seated by the operator's desk. She rose at once when she saw he wished to speak with her.

"Tell me something," he said in a low voice; "did Mr. Quarrier know that Leila was to stay overnight with you?"

"Yes," she answered quietly, surprised. "Why?"

Siward nodded vaguely, closed the door again, and said to Plank:

"Yes, Quarrier knows it. Do you think he'll be there to-night? I don't suppose Miss Landis and Mrs. Mortimer know he is in town."

Plank's troubled voice came back over the wire: "I don't know. I don't know what to think. I suppose I'm a little, just a trifle, overworked.

Somebody once said that I had one nerve in me somewhere, and Quarrier's probably found it; that's all."

"If you think it better not to come--"

"I'll come. I'll stop for you in the motor. Don't worry, old fellow!

And--take your fighting chance! Good-bye!"

Siward, absorbed in his own thoughts, rose and walked slowly out of the booth, utterly unconscious that he had left his crutches leaning upright in the corner. It was only the surprise dawning into tremulous delight on Sylvia's face that at last arrested him.

"See what you have done!" he said, laughing through his own surprise.

"I've a mind to leave them there now, and trust to your new cure."

But she was instantly concerned and anxious, and entering the booth brought out the crutches and forced him to take them.

"No risks now!" she said decisively. "We have too much at stake this evening. Leila is coming. Isn't it perfectly delightful?"

"Perfectly," he said, his eyes full of the old laughing confidence again; "and the most delightful part of it all is that you don't know how delightful it is going to be."

"Don't I? Very well. Only I inform you that I mean to be perfectly happy! And that means that I'm going to do as I please! And that means--oh, it may mean anything! What are you laughing at, Stephen? I know I'm excited. I don't care! What girl wouldn't be? And I don't know what's ahead of me at all; and I don't want to know--I don't care!"