During the half-hour which remained before train-time I fought the wretched battle all over again, back and forth and up and down until my brain reeled. At the end there was a shifty compromise. I was still fully determined to drop out and go to California; at one stroke to break with Polly Everton, and to put myself beyond the reach of the woman with claws; but I weakly decided to go by way of Denver, taking the night train west from the capital city over the Union Pacific. It was a cowardly expedient, prompted wholly by the old, sharp-toothed fear of consequences if I should fall to obey the wire summons, and I knew it. I offer nothing in extenuation.
Agatha met me at the Denver Union Station, and at her suggestion we went together to dinner at the Brown Palace. I did not know until later why she had sent for me, or why she chose a particular table in the dining-room, or why she went to pieces—figuratively speaking—when, at the serving of the dessert, a note was handed her.
After that, I should have said that she had been drinking too much champagne, if I had not known better.
"I want you to go with me up to my suite, Bertie; I've moved to the hotel," she said hurriedly as we were leaving the dining-room.
If I went reluctantly it was not owing to any new-born squeamishness. Heaven knows, I had been compromised with her too many times to care greatly for anything that could be added now. In the sitting-room of her private suite she punched the light switch and came to sit on the arm of my chair. If she had put an arm around my neck, as she did now and then when the wine was in and what few scruples she had were pushed aside, I think I should have strangled her.
"You are going to be awfully sweet to me to-night, Bertie," she began, with honey on her tongue. "You are going to be my good angel. I need a lot of money, and I want you to be nice and get it for me."
"No," I refused briefly. "You've bled me enough."
"Just this one more time, Boy," she coaxed. "I've simply got to have it, you know."
"Why don't you get it from your father?"
"He has quit," she said, with a toss of the shapely head. "Besides, you are so much easier."