I
ALL the time, under that motivating anger and determination not to go back, ran the two threads of thought—one quickly sifting the practicalities of a situation for a bare headed young girl in the streets of a city at two o’clock in the morning, the other analyzing, jeering at the melodrama of her position.
“It’s a warm night,” she thought, “I’ll probably get nothing but a terrific cold in my head if I do sit in Lincoln Park all night. That young devil! She planned all that. She deliberately didn’t tell Ted they were not coming straight home. There’s no way of proving it. I’d like to bring her to her knees. I’ll probably meet some fool policeman. How it will embarrass mother if this gets about. It’s an ugly mess if I don’t do things right. Nice ending to this visit. I knew the whole thing was bound to be disastrous. It was all a fake trip. That girl hated me from the start. As if I wanted that young fool.”
She was walking in the direction of the park, past the long iron fences, the smooth sloping terraces which characterized the Brownley part of the city. The street was absolutely quiet. Street lamps seemed very bright as she passed them. Here and there a light gleamed in a house, a night light behind an iron grilled door. Her footsteps seemed to resound with disastrous noise. She felt the sound of her walking was a disturbance of the peace, an affront to the quiet of everything about her. She hurried, trying to feel as if she were called out by illness, imagining what she would say if accosted, a little cooler of anger and beginning to be enthralled and intrigued by her own adventure.
Angry as she was, there was a thrill in the circumstances. She was sure she would not go back to the Brownley house and that resolve was backed perhaps by her interest in what might happen—what adventure might be awaiting her. Quite fearless and untroubled by any physical nervousness, her only anxiety was that she was not quite sure of how to meet any eventuality. But the night was hers. For a few hours she was thrown upon its mercy, and it exhilarated her, as if she had been released from annoying restraints. In her rush from the Brownley house she had satisfied a host of petty feelings which had been accumulating for weeks. It was as if she had broken through a horde of petty conventions which had been gaining a hold on her. She felt more herself than she had yet felt in the city. As she went along she almost forgot Barbara.
The park was still. The iron benches had long ago been deserted by even the last of the romantic couples. The policeman had evidently left the park for the night. Freda sat on a bench under a tree and tucked her feet under her to keep warm.
“Good thing mother insisted on an interlining in this coat,” she said to herself.
She heard the clock in Trinity High School sound half past two, after what seemed a long time. She was already chilled and cramped. Then she heard a sound of voices and looked up to see two men on the far side of the park, half a block away. It made her a little apprehensive. She suddenly felt a little unable to cope with two of them. Two had no romantic possibilities. If it had been one wanderer—
Hurriedly getting up, she slipped through the shadows and cleared the park, thankful that her coat was dark.
“Well, then, I must walk,” she said, trying to reassure herself by her own voice. Her feet were very cold and a little damp in their thin slippers. They hurt.
For a minute she considered going to Mrs. Flandon’s house. But she abandoned that idea. Mrs. Flandon wasn’t the sort of person she wanted to know about all this. She’d think she was such a fool. It might hurt her chances of getting that place. Did she want that place, she queried and kept her mind fixed on that for a little, sliding into a dream of what she might do and how she might confound Barbara Brownley.
By this time her walking had become fairly aimless. She had come through the residence district where she had been living, into a street of tall apartment houses. Here and there in the windows of these buildings lights still gleamed. Freda tried to amuse herself by wondering what was happening there, tried to forget her painful feet. Then she met her second adventurer.
He was walking very fast, his head up, and he rounded a corner so abruptly that she had no time to avoid him. As if he had hardly sensed her presence he passed her, then she heard his steps cease to resound and knew he was turning to look at her. He did more, he followed her. In a few strides he had caught up with her and Freda, turning her head, gave him a look meant to be fraught with dignity but which turned out to be only very angry. The man laughed.
“Oh, all right,” he said, “if you look like that, maybe there is something I can do for you. I wasn’t sure of what sort of person you were. But I see now.”
His voice was rich and clear and pleasant. Freda could not see what he looked like but she could tell he was young, and he did not sound dangerous.
“Please don’t bother me,” she said, “I’m just—out for a walk.”
“I hope you’re near home,” he answered.
Freda couldn’t resist it.
“I’m just exactly a hundred and thirty-nine miles from home.”
He tried to see her closely but her head was down.
“No, you’re not crazy,” he commented, “so there must be a story or a mystery to you. Can I walk home with you—the hundred and thirty-nine miles?”
“It’s too far—and I’m really better alone.”
“Please. I’m not in the least dangerous and I don’t want to annoy you. But you must admit that a young woman at three o’clock in the morning ought to let somebody accompany her on such prodigious walks. I’m out for one myself. I’d enjoy it.”
He talked like an Englishman—or an Irishman, thought Freda. And why shouldn’t she talk to him. It was all too ridiculous anyway. But rather exciting.
“I’m in a very silly mess,” she told him, “and I haven’t any place to go to-night.”
“And you wish I’d mind my own business?”
“No—but there’s nothing you can do. I’m not in the least a tragedy. In the morning I can straighten things out. I haven’t committed any murders or anything like that. But I said I wouldn’t go back to-night, and I won’t.”
The young man considered.
“Is it by any chance a husband to whom you made that statement?”
“Oh, no,” Freda laughed. “It wasn’t a husband or even a father. It was just a girl.”
“Well, you’re a bit thinly clad to carry out your high resolve.”
She shivered.
“Nights are longer than I thought.”
“Oh, you’re right there,” said he, “nights can stretch themselves out to infinity. However, we must shorten this one for you. I’d just as soon do it by conversation but your slippers—don’t you think you’d better go back—for this one night?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Well, I approve of high resolves myself. I’m used to them and seeing people offer themselves up on their altar. There’s no real reason why you should give in on any position you took, just because the sun is on the other side of the world. Could you tell me a bit more, maybe? If names mean anything to you at this hour of the night, mine’s Gregory Macmillan. I don’t live here. I’m staying at some hotel or other and I came here on business—that’s what you always say in the States, isn’t it, when you give an account of yourself?”
“You’re English.”
“Oh, God forbid,” he cried, “English! You insult me—but you don’t mean to. No—Irish, Irish, Irish—I should have said it first and have been spared that accusation.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what your accent was. I see now. It was stupid of me.”
He laughed at her. “It’s no matter. You’re a very young woman, aren’t you? I can tell from your voice. Well, you don’t want to wander further with an Irish adventurer, do you?”
“I can’t help myself.”
“Let’s get down to facts. You quarreled.”
“Hardly that. I tell you it’s a silly business. A drunk young man—a vicious girl who chanced to be my hostess said things. So I walked out of her house. I can’t go back without crawling back, can I?”
“No—you can’t go back if you’d have to crawl. But where else can you go? Haven’t you some friend—some intimate?”
“No—I can’t disturb families at this hour—and I only know people here a little.”
“Isn’t there perhaps some single lady? Some unmarried woman to whom you could turn? At this hour of the night it may be easier, you know, than at dawn. And you’re dressed for the evening. Of course we might go back to my hotel. Let’s see—a motor accident might do. No—that would involve things. You’re sure you don’t know some discreet spinster?”
She thought.
“I’ve only been here three weeks. Only perhaps Miss Duffield—?”
He started.
“You don’t mean Margaret Duffield? You know her? Why, of course, she’s the very one. Do you mean her?”
“And you know her too?”
“Know her? I have been talking with her until an hour ago. You mystic child, of course you’d know Margaret. Come, let’s go to her and she’ll tell me about you—and I’ll get a chance to see her again to-night even—and perhaps, with you in charge, she’ll want to see me.”
Freda was enchanted. Her feet were forgotten. Barbara was forgotten. The night, the delicious hour, the stranger who was chivalric and mysterious and knew Margaret Duffield,—all of it was rounding out a perfect adventure. She laughed in sheer delight.
“Isn’t it marvelous?” she asked, “this meeting you—you knowing the only person I could go to, isn’t it curious and like a well-made dream?”
He took her by the arm, holding her up a little as they crossed the cobbled street.
“Life at its best is only a well-made dream,” he answered.
In all her life Freda had never met any one who dared to talk like that.
It was three o’clock but the light in Margaret’s apartment still burned. Little lines of it streamed out from the curtain edges. At sight of the light Gregory stopped.
“Lucky it’s on the ground floor,” he said, “she can let us in without any of the others hearing us tramp by.”
Freda hung back a little.
“It’s rather an outrageous thing to do. I wonder if I should.”
“Nonsense. Anyway, you’ve no choice. I’m bringing my refugee here myself.”
They tiptoed into the little hallway and rang her bell—then went over by her door. It was characteristic of Margaret that she did not call, “Who’s there?” from behind the door. She opened her door a little and looked out.
“It’s I,” said Gregory, softly, “and a distressed lady, whom you know. Can we come in?”
The door opened wider and Margaret put out her hand as Freda shrunk back a little.
“Why, Freda—where did you come from?” Margaret looked at Gregory, but he waited for Freda to tell her own story, perhaps not knowing how much she wanted to tell.
In the light again, Freda had blushed scarlet and then turned pale, her cheeks wonderfully waxen and lustrous from the night air. Under her eyes there were circles of fatigue and her hair had clung to her head, damp from moisture. She looked at Margaret and seemed to remember that her adventure had begun in disaster.
“I’m so sorry to bother you like this—I’m so sorry. But he said I’d better.”
Again Margaret exchanged glances with Gregory. Gregory was looking at Margaret now as if he were conscious of the picture she made in the blue Grecian negligée which suited that slim, straight figure so well. But if she noticed his glance, she was impatient of it.
“Of course it’s no question of bother—but what is it?”
Freda had made no move to drop her cloak. She held it close around her as she stood against the inside of the door.
She told them as much as she could.
“I couldn’t go back.”
The eyes of her hearers were angry.
“Of course you couldn’t,” said Margaret, simply. “And you can perfectly well spend the night here. In the morning I’ll send for your clothes.”
She drew Freda, who was shivering now, over on the couch, then turned to Gregory.
“Good night, Gregory—again. You bring adventure with you.”
There was a smile in her eyes which he seemed to answer by a look in his own. Then he looked past her to Freda.
“Good night, little wanderer. I’ll see you to-morrow.”
Freda saw him fully now. He was tall and thin and ugly. His dark eyes seemed to flash from caverns above his high cheekbones. But he had a wide Irish mouth and it smiled very tenderly at them both as he softly went out.
Freda would not take Margaret’s little couch bed for herself so Margaret had to improvise a bed on the floor for her guest, a bed of blankets and coats and Freda slept in Margaret’s warm bath robe. Oddly, she slept far better than did Margaret, who, for a long while, held herself stiffly on one side that her turning might not disturb Freda.