“There is a call for me, I believe,” he said. “This is Mr. Dale.”
There was a moment’s silence, then Jimmie Dale spoke again.
“Yes—hello!” he said. “Yes, this is Mr. Dale. What—”
The room seemed suddenly to swirl about him—the hand so steady a few moments ago was trembling palpably now as it held the instrument. Her voice? No—he was mad! It was his brain, overwrought, strained, not to the breaking point, but beyond, that had broken at last, and was mocking at him now in some cruel phantasy. Her voice? No, it could not be, for she—for she was—
“Jimmie! Jimmie!”—the voice came hurriedly again, almost frantically this time. “Jimmie—are you there?”
“You!” His lips were dry, he moistened them with his tongue. “You!” he whispered hoarsely. “You, Marie—and I thought—I thought that you were—”
“Jimmie,” she broke in, a quick, wistful catch in her voice, “I cannot stay here a moment—you understand, don’t you? There is not an instant to lose—on the floor by the Sanctuary window—a note—will you hurry, Jimmie—good-bye.”
She was gone. Mechanically he replaced the receiver on the hook. She was gone—but it was her voice he had heard—hers—and she was alive. The play of emotion upon him robbed him for the moment of coherent thought, and came and swept over him in a mighty surge and engulfed him; and now in the sudden revulsion from despair and the bitterest of agony his mind was dazed and numbed. It seemed as though he were obeying some subconscious power, as he turned and left the room; as though some influence outside of, and extraneous to, himself gave him a spurious self-mastery, a self-command, a mask of nonchalance, as he walked calmly through the club lobby and out to the street.
Benson, his chauffeur, held the door of his car open for him.
“Where to, sir?” Benson asked.