No words could have been more commonplace, less in the category of dramatic or poetic welcome, but they were music to the boy, and when the actress looked at him with a ghost of a smile on her trembling lips, Dan was sure there was some kind of blessing in the greeting.
“I am going to see you home,” he said with determination, and she caught at it:
“Yes, yes, do! Will you?”
The third member of the party had not spoken. A servant fetched him a light to which he bent, touching his cigar. Then he lifted his head—a handsome one—with its cold and indifferent eyes, to Letty Lane.
“Good night, Miss Lane.” A deep color crept under his dark skin.
“Come,” said the actress eagerly, “come along; my motor is out there and I am crazy tired. That is all there is about it. Come along.”
Snatched from a marriage contract, still bitter from his jealous anger, this—to be alone with her—by the side of this white, fragrant, wonderful creature—to have been turned to by her, to be alone with her, the Duchess of Breakwater out of his horizon, Poniotowsky gone—Oh, it was sweet to him! They had rolled out from the Carlton down toward the Square and he put his arm around her waist, his voice shook:
“You are dead tired! And when I saw that brute with you to-night I could have shot him.”
“Why?”