“In that case,” continued the persistently suave voice, “perhaps it would be advisable for me to run up to see you, so that there may be no undue loss of time.”
Teddie wavered, for all too recent events had been combining to test the metal of her emancipation. Yet disturbed as she may have been, she was not without still undrained reservoirs of courage.
“Yes, that might be better,” she finally admitted.
“I shall be up within an hour,” was the crisp ultimatum with which the brief colloquy was concluded.
And Teddie, reverting to her pretense of working, felt more than ever alone in the world. Life seemed emptier than on the day she had learned her curate had married the Chautauqua singer, emptier even than that black day when the butler, acting under orders from above-stairs, had drowned her mongrel pup for merely eating the tapestry off a library Chesterfield. And her new environment, as she stared about the high-ceilinged studio, seemed to stand as bald as that denuded Chesterfield had stood, as destitute of padded graces and relieving softnesses, an empty and ugly skeleton, a thing of obtruding bones quite barren of comfort.
It accordingly relieved Teddie not a little, when Mr. William Shotwell arrived, to find him quite urbane and fatherly, although he did seem to survey her somewhat bald-looking studio with a momentary frown of perplexity. Then, removing his pince-nez, he was at pains to remind her that he had met that estimable lady, her mother, during his activities as an officer of the Cooperative Social Settlement Society, and had dined with her equally estimable father three years before at the annual banquet of the Astronomical Club, and stood in no way ignorant of the position and prestige which her family might claim both in the Tuxedo colony and the City itself. He appeared so reluctant to come to the point, in fact, that the none-too-patient Teddie was compelled to prod him on a bit. And even then he seemed to hesitate so long that Teddie, with a sinking heart, began to wonder if Raoul Uhlan had passed away from his injuries and she was about to be indicted as a murderess.
Seeing that sharp look of distress in her eyes, the attorney for the plaintiff became more urbane than ever, and protested that from the first he had advocated adjustment of some sort, a quiet and respectable settlement out of court that would cast no reflection on a family as prominent as hers and would obviate, of course, a distressing and perhaps humiliating campaign of publicity.
“I’ll be greatly obliged,” cried Teddie, shouldered over the brink of patience, “if you’ll tell me just what you’re driving at.”
“I’m driving at this,” responded William Shotwell, with a slight evaporation of urbanity and a corresponding hardening of face-lines: “my client, Raoul Uhlan, is now under the care of a doctor, under the care of two doctors, I might add, as the result of an assault which he sustained in this studio some twenty-four hours ago.”
“Oh!” said Teddie, with the quite familiar feeling of a miscreant being called up for reproof.