“Where is he?” repeated Harvey, shaking his finger in Rachel’s face.
“What are you blaming me for?” demanded the maid, indignantly. “Everybody blames me for everything. He’s in New York, that’s where he is. Now, you get out of here!”
She actually shoved him out into the aisle, where he stood trembling and uncertain, while she assisted her mistress to her feet and led her haltingly toward the exit.
Nellie looked back over her shoulder at him, quite coquettishly. She shook her head at him in mild derision.
“My, what a fire-eater my little Harvey has become,” she said. He barely heard the words. “Your new wife must be scared half out of her wits all the time.”
He sprang to her side, gently taking her arm in his hand. She lurched toward him ever so slightly. He felt the weight of her on his arm and marvelled that she was so much lighter than Phoebe.
“I’m not married, Nellie dear!” he cried. “It’s not to be till Friday. You got the date wrong. And it won’t be Friday, either. No, sir! I’m not going to let you go all the way out there 242 alone. I said I’d look out for you when we were married, and I’m going to. You’ve got a husband, but what good is he to you? He’s a brute. Yes, sir; I’m going with you and I don’t give a cuss who knows it. See here! See this wad of bills? Well, by jingo, there’s more than three thousand dollars there. I drew it out this morning to give to you if you were hard up. I––”
“Oh, Harvey, what a perfect fool you are!” she cried, tears in her eyes. “You always were a fool. Now you are a bigger one than ever. Go away, please! I can get along all right. Fairfax is paying for everything. Put that roll away! Do you want to be held up right here in the station?”
“And I’ve still got the photograph gallery,” he went on. “It’s rented and I get $40 a month out of it. I’ll take care of you, Nellie. I’ll see you safely out there. Then maybe I’ll have to come back and marry old Mrs. Davis, God help me! I hate to think of it, but she’s got her mind set on it. I don’t believe I can get out of it. But she’ll have to postpone it, I can tell you that, whether she likes it or not. Maybe she’ll call it off when she hears I’ve eloped with 243 another man’s wife. She thinks I’m a perfect scamp with women, anyway, and this may turn her dead against me. Gee, I hope it does! Say, let me go along with you, Nellie; please do. You and I won’t call it an elopement, but maybe she will and that would save me. And that beast of a Fairfax won’t care, so what’s the harm?”
“No,” said Nellie, looking at him queerly. “Fairfax won’t care. You can be sure of that.”