“Where shall it be?” the latter asked. “The manse or Bryan’s or out on the Post Road?”
Storm did not reply. They were chugging over the viaduct and around the turn where he and Horton had walked the night before. They were nearing the top of the incline where the wall sheered down—was that a crowd collecting there on the path? He strained his eyes ahead and unconsciously a muttered exclamation arose in his throat. The next moment they were upon a little group, and he saw it was composed of a gossipping phalanx of nurse-maids with baby carriages, lingering in the last, slanting rays of the westering sun.
He sank back with a sigh, and the little car plodded on.
“What’s the matter with you?” George demanded in good-natured sarcasm. “Getting deaf, or something? I asked you where you wanted to go.”
“Eh?—Oh, anywhere,” Storm responded absently. “As long as it isn’t one of those jazz places. Don’t go too far; I don’t feel like a long walk home, and you are bound to strip the gears or do some fool thing.”
“I like that!” the other retorted. “I only did that once to your car and then Leila——”
He paused, biting his lip, and Storm clenched his hands. He could have turned and struck the man beside him!—Leila! Greenlea! Damn them all, would they never allow him to forget, even for a moment? Wasn’t there enough on his mind—with that body lying somewhere back there undiscovered and the thought of the alarm which must be even now manifesting itself out at the Mid-Eastern plant in the Alleghanies—without recalling that first hideous affair?
“I—I’ve learned to drive all right now,” George amended hastily. “Wait till we get up to the road where I can let her out and you’ll see!”
The drive thereafter was a silent one. George, dismayed by his blundering touch upon his friend’s supposed grief, felt contrite and self-conscious, and Storm was buried in his own thoughts. What would George say when he read in the papers of Horton’s disappearance? The two men had not been over congenial at college, for George had disapproved of the other’s wild pranks, but there had been a certain camaraderie between them. Storm felt an almost irresistible impulse to speak Horton’s name, to hear George talk of him. It was madness, he knew; the fellow had not been mentioned between them for years, and if he were to do so now the coincidence, in the face of the news which must soon come, would strike even George’s dull perceptions. Yet as they drew up at a cosy little inn and settled themselves before a table on the vine-screened veranda, the desire persisted, dominating all other thoughts.
Wholly innocent of subtleties as he was, it seemed as though George himself had some divination of his companion’s mental trend, for as he glanced about him he remarked: