“Brewster, Richard E. Insurance Broker.”
Dick Brewster! The husband of that light-headed, irresponsible little Julie, the very man to whom his thoughts had turned in the train not a half-hour since! The man of whom George Holworthy had spoken—and what was it that George had said?
“She’s going it rather strong with young Mattison. Dick’s not a fool; he’ll either blow up some day or find somebody’s else wife to sympathize——” Was that the solution? Could old George, obtuse as he was, have divined the truth and been trying in his stupid, blundering fashion, to warn him? Could it actually be that the woman who bore his name, who belonged to him, his property, had dared to flout his possession of her, to supplant him with another, to make of him a byword, a thing of pitying contempt?
How long he stood there before the directory he never afterward knew. He came dimly to realize at last that in the passing crowd which brushed by him more than one turned to stare curiously at him; and, turning, he stumbled blindly toward the elevator. Alighting at Brewster’s floor, he made his way to the number which had been indicated opposite the name upon the board below, and, wrenching open the door, he strode into the office.
A languid stenographer looked up from behind her typewriter.
“Mr. Brewster won’t be in town to-day. Do you want to leave any message?”
“No. I’ll call again,” Storm muttered. “Not—not in town to-day, you say?”
“He ’phoned just now from his country place; he’ll be in to-morrow. Did you have an appointment with him?”
Storm shook his head, and, ignoring the card and pencil which the girl laid suggestively before him, he turned to the door.
“I’ll call up to-morrow.”