"Men! How well I know men! The sameness of them! What do they offer me? Orchids, hothouse grapes, jewels that I return. Never a flower that is free and wild. What is it I want, Sarah? Romance! A whirlwind, an avalanche, to sweep me up, to carry me off—berserker love! A man who'll take me if I'm what he wants, without pursuing me in circles. I am a viking's daughter! This man?... We shall wait and see. Get me to bed. I am weary."
Meanwhile Mathison went through his magazines, taking in the pictures first. Then he fell upon a good story. It was illustrated by photographs, and one of the photographs made him forget the story. What was it? What was it that stirred in the back of his head at the sight of this bit of dramatized photography? He studied it near and afar, from this angle and that, but the lure remained tantalizingly beyond reach.
Fate never hurries. She takes time in writing her human scenarios; she can afford to. She knows that inexorably they will be enacted, without deviation. She had chosen this moment to place before Mathison's eye the photograph of a beautiful young woman.
The train from Omaha arrived in Chicago exactly twenty-four hours late. Great storms were raging across the land.
As Mathison was passing through the gate—the green ribbon in his buttonhole—a man approached him covertly and thrust an envelope into his hand. More tickets. Mathison did not accelerate his stride in the least. He knew that everything was prepared for him. Upon reaching the cab-stand he stopped. At once three taxis rolled up. Mathison bundled his luggage into the middle cab, rested Malachi's cage on his knees, shouted an order, and the three cabs started off rapidly.
The snow was coming down in thick sheets. A blizzard was in the offing.
Just outside the regular cab-stand stood a private car, a heavy, powerful limousine. As the three taxis rolled away into the storm a man dashed up to the limousine, jumped in and called to the chauffeur:
"The middle car; follow that. Smash it or tip it over. In a storm like this accidents will happen."
The limousine shot forward. The going was heavy. The man in the limousine saw the three taxis string out a little as they went on. What he did not see was the fourth taxi which followed him.
Almost in a kind of military maneuver the three taxis forward veered together suddenly and shot down a side-street. It took the limousine two minutes to pick them up again. There were plenty of arc-lights, and by the aid of these the pursuer saw that he had gained a little. They were strung out again, about fifteen feet apart. They held this formation for several blocks.