"I do not know who you are, or what you are talking about," Betty said coldly. "I must ask you to leave my table at once."
"What sort of a game are you trying to play?" he demanded. "You are the woman I came here to find. I recognized you at once from the description—"
Betty rose.
"Wait!" The young man put out a detaining hand. "What is the good of all this bluff? I give you my word of honor that I am acting in good faith with you—"
"You must be mad!" Her eyes flashed with unfeigned resentment and indignation. "If you attempt to follow or annoy me further, sir, I shall complain to the management."
Turning, she swept from the restaurant and out to where the car awaited her at the curb, but as it rolled swiftly away, she sank back and buried her burning face among the cushions.
When the strangely pertinacious young man had declared his recognition of her, his eyes had been upon the birthmark on her cheek. This, then, was the reason for Mrs. Atterbury's peremptory command to her to remove her veil. Her very infirmity was being made to serve her employer's ends!
Betty laughed softly, bitterly, and struck her small, clenched fist against the window frame, in impotent anger. Then her head drooped upon her arm and for the first time since she had entered Mrs. Atterbury's service, she broke down utterly. Sobbing the weary, heartbreaking sobs of a forsaken child, she cowered in her corner, while street after street flitted by in the ghostly gray dusk.
At length, spent with the storm of her emotion she lay back, exhausted but calm once more. The dusk was deepening to darkness and as she watched the chain of lights twinkling past, Betty suddenly came to a realization of the flight of time. Surely she should have reached the house on the North Drive long before this! Had an hour gone by while she sat huddled there, weakly giving way to tears?—
Tears! Betty's very heart stood still for a moment in deathly fear. Then she switched on the light and seized the mirror from the leather case before her. The face which stared back at her was pale, the eyes puffed and reddened, but a dab of cosmetic and powder would conceal the ravages of her emotion from even Mrs. Atterbury's keen eyes until she could reach the haven of her own room.