She glided slowly towards the door, but with an air so unconcerned, so free from any suggestion of flight, that he suspected nothing. The fact of her leaving the door ajar seemed to imply an immediate return. Several minutes passed before he suddenly became uneasy. So peremptory was his conviction that she was near that he cried: "Phyllis, Phyllis," before rising to find out what had become of her. But she was not in the corridor outside. He sought her boudoir--nor was she here either. Her bedroom off it? It was empty, too. Thoroughly alarmed, he descended the stairs, softly calling out, "Phyllis, Phyllis!" He was answered by a servant's voice below: "Is it you, Sir?"
"Yes, Henry, I am looking for Miss Phyllis?"
"She went out a minute ago, Sir."
"Went out?"
"Yes, Sir."
Good God, she was gone!
CHAPTER XIV
Once outside the door, she had raced downstairs like the wind, put on her hat anyhow, and sped into the darkness, without waiting for wrap or gloves. Her first idea had been to reach the theater, but as she turned down side streets in order to evade pursuit and get the Fairmount Avenue car line, she realized that this involved too much time. Her watch, hastily looked at under a lamp, showed that it was after eight o'clock, and that she could not hope to gain the theater before the first act began. She decided to telephone instead, and accordingly, walking very fast, and sometimes running until a pain in her side forced her to desist, she made her way to Fairmount Avenue, and to a drug-store she knew to be there. It was the matter of a moment to look up the number of the Thalia Theater, unhook the receiver, and get central.
"Nick-el," murmured that impersonal arbiter of human destinies.
"I don't understand--please give me my number, I'm in such a hurry."