In the first moments of reaction she even experienced a sense of personal injury and almost of resentment toward her companion. He had put her through the most horrible half-hour of her life. It seemed that no service he had rendered could compensate her for such suffering. On the other hand, he had brought her safely back to New York, as he had promised to do. Surely, it was not for her to cavil at the manner in which he had done it. Something, of course, had happened, probably a racking fight between the two men. Laurie was exhausted, and was showing it; that was all.
With their arrival at her studio, his manner did not change. He assisted her from the car, punctiliously escorted her to the elevator, and left her there.
"I have some telephoning to do," he explained. "I shall not leave the building, and I expect to be with you again in about fifteen minutes. With your permission, I am asking my two partners to meet me in your studio, Rodney Bangs and Jacob Epstein. What I have to tell must be told to all three of you, and"—his voice caught in a queer fashion—"it is a thing I don't want to tell more than once. I think I can get them right away. They'll probably be in their rooms, dressing for dinner. May they come here?"
"Of course."
Her panic was returning. His appearance in the lighted hall was nothing short of terrifying, and not the least uncanny feature was his own utter unconsciousness of or indifference to it.
"Thanks. Then I'll wait for them down here, and bring them up to your studio when they come."
He left her with that, and Henry, the night elevator man, who went on duty at six o'clock, indifferently swung the lever and started his car upward.
In the studio, with her door shut against the world, Doris again resolutely took herself and her nerves in hand. She summoned endless explanations of Laurie's manner and appearance, explanations which, however, turn and twist them as she would, always left something unexplained.
There was, she realized, a strong probability that he had forced the truth from Shaw. But even the truth would not make Laurie look and act like that. Or would it? She tried to believe it would. Anything would be better than the thing she feared. She set her teeth; then, springing from the chair into which she had dropped, she turned on the studio lights and busied herself with preparations for her visitors. She simply dared not let her thoughts run on.
Five minutes passed—ten—fifteen—twenty. Save during the half-hour of that return journey from Sea Cliff, she had never known such dragging, horror-filled moments. A dozen times she fancied she heard the elevator stop at her floor, and the sound of voices and footsteps approach. A dozen times she went to her windows and wildly gazed out on the storm. As she stared, she prayed. It was the same prayer, over and over.