"Now for it!" she thought, like a soldier who goes "over the top" to charge the enemy. Head down, hood flapping, cloak floating, she sailed along the corridor and out into the gallery beyond. Yes, there was the marble staircase, and below was the great, bright hall; but in this disguise she could pass O'Reilly if he had assembled half the detectives in New York. So she tripped down the stairs, sedate, unhurried as the care-free girl whose cloak she had borrowed. Arrived in the hall, she knew her way out, and could hardly subdue the triumph in her voice as she said "Taxi, please," to an attendant porter.
"Where shall I tell him to go, miss?" came the question as she stepped into the cab; and for half a second she hesitated. By a clock she had seen in the hall it was just half-past eight. There would be time to go home, time for Angel to open the envelope and see if the contents were right, time to tell Angel her own adventures, and time to rest before keeping her tryst with Peterson.
She gave the number of the house in Park Avenue where Roger Sands lived. The door of the taxi shut with a reassuring "click." It was heavenly to lean back against the comfortable cushions! She ought to be entirely happy, entirely satisfied. Perhaps it was only reaction after so many hopes and fears, this weight that seemed to press upon her heart. Yet it was an obstinate weight. It grew heavier as the taxi brought her nearer home.
XVI
A QUOTATION FROM SHAKESPEARE
"Not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme."
The words describing Othello's torment rang in Roger Sands' ears.
The words kept time with the purring throb of the motor that sped him on his wife's errand. Certain it was that he had not been easily jealous!
He had married a girl with a secret to keep, and he had never questioned her. He had made her a queen; and he was her loyal subject. She ruled him and his kingdom. Only to-day he had given her a queen's pearls. They were his atonement for an hour of distrust. How had she rewarded him? Roger reviewed the afternoon, since the presentation of the pearls, and there were details which he saw in a new light. So desperate had been her mysterious haste that she had broken the rope of pearls, and had not even stopped to pick up the scattered splendour.