“They told me you were here,” faltered Frederic, the words rushing hurriedly through his lips, “and I thought we might run in somewhere and have a bite to eat. I—I want to tell you about Lydia and myself and what———”
The carriage-man bawled a number in his ear and jerked open the door of a limousine that had pulled up to the curb.
Without a word James Brood handed his wife into the car and then turned to the chauffeur.
“Home,” he said, and, without so much as a glance at Frederic, stepped inside. The door was slammed and the car slid out into the maelstrom.
Yvonne had sunk back into a corner, huddled down as if suddenly deprived of all her strength. Frederic saw her face as the car moved away. She was staring at him with wide-open, reproachful eyes, as if to say: “Oh, what have you done? What a fool you are!”
For a second or two he stood as if petrified, then everything turned red before him, a wicked red that blinded him. He staggered, as if from a blow in the face.
“My God!” slipped from his stiff lips, and tears leaped to his eyes—tears of supreme mortification. Like a beaten dog he slunk away, feeling himself pierced by the pitying gaze of every mortal in the street.