“Dent—Department—Derrick—Desmond—Deutsch—Deveraux—Deverley—De Vinne—Devlin....”
There it was: “Martin Devlin, Motor Cars,—North Broad Street.” Jeannette’s polished finger-nail rested beneath the name and her lips formed the words without a sound. She closed the Philadelphia Directory, turned from the telephone desk in the big New York hotel, and walked slowly out into the bright autumn glare of the street.
Thanksgiving was next week; there would be no difficulty in securing leave at the office to be absent from Wednesday night until Monday morning.
“I’d just like to see,” she kept repeating to herself. “There’d be no harm in seeing what kind of a place he has. I could learn so much just walking by.”
An odd excitement took possession of her. She saw herself in the train, she saw herself in a large, comfortable room at the Bellevue-Stratford, saw herself in her smartest costume, sauntering up Broad Street.
“I’ve a good mind to do it,” she whispered. “It could do no possible harm. I’d just like to see.”
She was unable to reach any definite conclusion, but she inspected her wardrobe carefully, deciding exactly what she would wear if she went to Philadelphia, and then did a very reckless thing: she bought herself a sumptuous garment, a short outer jacket of broadtail and kolinsky, a regal mantle fit for a millionaire’s wife. A giddy madness seemed to settle upon her after this; her savings in the bank,—the savings which were to buy another bond,—were almost wiped out, and she deliberately drew a check for what remained. Some power outside of herself seemed to take charge of her actions; she moved from one step to another as if hypnotized; she spoke to Mr. Allister about two extra days at Thanksgiving, she bought her ticket and chair-car reservation at the Pennsylvania Station, she wrote the Bellevue-Stratford to hold one of their best outside rooms for her, she explained with simulated carelessness to Beatrice Alexander that there was a Book-Dealers’ Convention in Philadelphia which the firm had requested her to attend, and the four o’clock train on the afternoon of the holiday found her bound for the Quaker city.
As she sat stiffly upright in her luxurious armchair, staring out upon the dreary New Jersey marshes, panic suddenly came upon her.
What was she doing? Was she crazy? Was Miss Sturgis of the Mail Order Department this woman, so elegantly clad, speeding toward Philadelphia? And on what mad errand? After years of careful living, after years of prudent saving, was it actually she, Jeannette Sturgis, who had recklessly flung to the four winds the bank account of which she had been so proud? Oh, she must be mad, indeed!
She grasped the arms of her chair and instinctively glanced from one end to the other of the palatial car. She was seized with a violent impulse to get off. There was Manhattan Transfer; she could take a train back to the city from there. Determinedly, she gazed out upon the empty, cold-looking platform when the train reached the station, but she made no move, and as the wheels commenced to rumble beneath her once more, she sank back resignedly into her seat, and a measure of calmness returned.