The Flirt Part 37

"Thank heaven for that!" cried Laura.

"I'm going to take care of myself," Cora went on rapidly. "I'm going to get out of the mess I'm in, and you've got to let me do it my own way. I'll send you a note from downtown. You see that the messenger----"

She was at the door, but Laura caught her by the sleeve, protesting and beseeching.

Cora turned desperately. "See here. I'll come back in two hours and tell you all about it. If I promise that, will you promise to send me the bag by the----"

"But if you're coming back you won't need----"

Cora spoke very quietly. "I'll go to pieces in a moment. Really, I do think I'd better jump out of the window and have it over."

"I'll send the bag," Laura quavered, "if you'll promise to come back in two hours."

"I promise!"

Cora gave her a quick embrace, a quick kiss, and, dry-eyed, ran out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the house.

She walked briskly down Corliss Street. It was a clear day, bright noon, with an exhilarating tang in the air, and a sky so glorious that people outdoors were continually conscious of the blue overhead, and looked up at it often. An autumnal cheerfulness was abroad, and pedestrians showed it in their quickened steps, in their enlivened eyes, and frequent smiles, and in the colour of their faces. But none showed more colour or a gayer look than Cora. She encountered many whom she knew, for it was indeed a day to be stirring, and she nodded and smiled her way all down the long street, thinking of what these greeted people would say to-morrow. "_I_ saw her yesterday, walking down Corliss Street, about noon, in a gray suit and looking fairly radiant!" Some of those she met were enemies she had chastened; she prophesied their remarks with accuracy. Some were old suitors, men who had desired her; one or two had place upon her long list of boy-sweethearts: she gave the same gay, friendly nod to each of them, and foretold his morrow's thoughts of her, in turn. Her greeting of Mary Kane was graver, as was aesthetically appropriate, Mr. Wattling's engagement having been broken by that lady, immediately after his drive to the Country Club for tea. Cora received from the beautiful jilt a salutation even graver than her own, which did not confound her.

Halfway down the street was a drug-store. She went in, and obtained appreciative permission to use the telephone. She came out well satisfied, and went swiftly on her way. Ten minutes later, she opened the door of Wade Trumble's office.

He was alone; her telephone had caught him in the act of departing for lunch. But he had been glad to wait--glad to the verge of agitation.

"By George, Cora!" he exclaimed, as she came quickly in and closed the door, "but you _can_ look stunning! Believe me, that's some get-up. But let me tell you right here and now, before you begin, it's no use your tackling me again on the oil proposition. If there was any chance of my going into it which there wasn't, not one on earth--why, the very fact of your asking me would have stopped me. I'm no d.i.c.k Lindley, I beg to inform you: I don't spend my money helping a girl that I want, myself, to make a hit with another man. You treated me like a dog about that, right in the street, and you needn't try it again, because I won't stand for it. You can't play _me_, Cora!"

"Wade," she said, coming closer, and looking at him mysteriously, "didn't you tell me to come to you when I got through playing?"

"What?" He grew very red, took a step back from her, staring at her distrustfully, incredulously.

"I've got through playing", she said in a low voice. "And I've come to you."

He was staggered. "You've come----" he said, huskily.

"Here I am, Wade."

He had flushed, but now the colour left his small face, and he grew very white. "I don't believe you mean it."

"Listen," she said. "I was rotten to you about that oil nonsense.

It _was_ nonsense, nothing on earth but nonsense. I tell you frankly I was a fool. I didn't care the snap of my finger for Corliss, but--oh, what's the use of pretending? You were always such a great 'business man,' always so absorbed in business, and put it before everything else in the world. You cared for me, but you cared for business more than for me. Well, no woman likes _that_, Wade. I've come to tell you the whole thing: I can't stand it any longer. I suffered horribly because--because----" She faltered. "Wade, that was no way to _win_ a girl."

"Cora!" His incredulity was strong.

"I thought I hated you for it, Wade. Yes, I did think that; I'm telling you everything, you see just blurting it out as it comes, Wade. Well, Corliss asked me to help him, and it struck me I'd show that I could understand a business deal, myself. Wade, this is pretty hard to say, I was such a little fool, but you ought to know it. You've got a right to know it, Wade: I thought if I put through a thing like that, it would make a tremendous. .h.i.t with you, and that then I could say: 'So this is the kind of thing you put ahead of _me_, is it? Simple little things like this, that _I_ can do, myself, by turning over my little finger!' So I got Richard to go in--that was easy; and then it struck me that the crowning triumph of the whole thing would be to get you to come in yourself. That _would_ be showing you, I thought! But you wouldn't: you put me in my place--and I was angry--I never was so angry in my life, and I showed it." Tears came into her voice.

"Oh, Wade," she said, softly, "it was the very wildness of my anger that showed what I really felt."

"About--about _me_?" His incredulity struggled with his hope. He stepped close to her.

"What an awful fool I've been," she sighed.

"Why, I thought I could show you I was your _equal_! And look what it's got me into, Wade!"

"What has it got you into, Cora?"

"One thing worth while: I can see what I really am when I try to meet you on your own ground." She bent her head, humbly, then lifted it, and spoke rapidly. "All the rest is dreadful, Wade. I had a distrust of Corliss from the first; I didn't like him, but I took him up because I thought he offered the chance to show _you_ what I could do. Well, it's got me into a most horrible mess. He's a swindler, a rank----"

"By George!" Wade shouted. "Cora, you're talking out now like a real woman."

"Listen. I got horribly tired of him after a week or so, but I'd promised to help him and I didn't break with him; but yesterday I just couldn't stand him any longer and I told him so, and sent him away. Then, this morning, an old man came to the house, a man named Pryor, who knew him and knew his record, and he told me all about him." She narrated the interview.

"But you had sent Corliss away first?" Wade asked, sharply.

"Yesterday, I tell you." She set her hand on the little man's shoulder. "Wade, there's bound to be a scandal over all this. Even if Corliss gets away without being arrested and tried, the whole thing's bound to come _out_. I'll be the laughing-stock of the town--and I deserve to be: it's all through having been ridiculous idiot enough to try and impress you with my business brilliancy.

Well, I can't stand it!"

"Cora, do you----" He faltered.

She leaned toward him, her hand still on his shoulder, her exquisite voice lowered, and thrilling in its sweetness. "Wade, I'm through playing. I've come to you at last because you've utterly conquered me. If you'll take me away to-day, I'll _marry_ you to-day!"

He gave a shout that rang again from the walls.

"Do you want me?" she whispered; then smiled upon his rapture indulgently.

Rapture it was. With the word "marry," his incredulity sped forever. But for a time he was incoherent: he leaped and hopped, spoke broken bits of words, danced fragmentarily, ate her with his eyes, partially embraced her, and finally kissed her timidly.

"Such a wedding we'll have!" he shouted, after that.

"No!" she said sharply. "We'll be married by a Justice of the Peace and not a soul there but us, and it will be now, or it never will be! If you don't----"

He swore she should have her way.

"Then we'll be out of this town on the three o'clock train this afternoon," she said. She went on with her plans, while he, growing more accustomed to his privilege, caressed her as he would. "You shall have your way," she said, "in everything except the wedding-journey. That's got to be a long one--I won't come back here till people have forgotten all about this Corliss mix-up. I've never been abroad, and I want you to take me. We can stay a long, long time. I've brought nothing--we'll get whatever we want in New York before we sail."

He agreed to everything. He had never really hoped to win her; paradise had opened, dazing him with glory: he was astounded, mad with joy, and abjectly his lady's servant.

"Hadn't you better run along and get the license?" she laughed.

"We'll have to be married on the way to the train." "Cora!" he gasped. "You angel!"

"I'll wait here for you," she smiled. "There won't be too much time."

He obtained a moderate control of his voice and feet.

"Enfield--that's my cashier--he'll be back from his lunch at one-thirty. Tell him about us, if I'm not here by then. Tell him he's got to manage somehow. Good-bye till I come back Mrs.

Trumble!"

At the door he turned. "Oh, have you--you----" He paused uncertainly. "Have you sent Richard Lindley any word about----"

"Wade!" She gave his inquiry an indulgent amus.e.m.e.nt. "If I'm not worrying about him, do you think you need to?"

"I meant about----"