"Into the rain?"
"Well, you can't stay here, can you?"
"I'll do nothing of the sort. Go and tell her the wires are down. They are. And then get that crowd of flappers upstairs. If they go the men will. I give you ten minutes. At the end of that time I'm coming out to the fire. I'm cold."
"And after they go up, what?"
"Then you're going into somebody's room to steal me a pair of dry shoes. Get Maisie's, she's about my size. We'll have to walk to mother's."
"I can't leave, Clara. If anything happened and I was missing——"
When I said nothing he knew I was in earnest. He went out and told them the telephone was out of order, and somehow or other he shooed them upstairs. I opened the door of the telephone closet for air, and I could hear them overhead, ragging Roger about the engagement and how he happened to get to Maisie's when it was so far from his road home. Every time I thought they were settled, some fool of a boy or giggling débutante would come down again and look for soap, or towels, or matches, or heaven knows what. I could have strangled the lot of them.
By three o'clock it was fairly quiet, and I crept out and sat by the log fire. If I had had a shoe I would have started off then and there. I'm no coward and I was desperate. But I couldn't go in my silk stockings. And when after a while Roger slipped down the stairs he had no shoes for me.
"I've tried all the girls' doors," he said wretchedly, "and they're locked. Couldn't you tie a towel round your foot, or something? I'm going to get into trouble over this thing yet. I feel it."
"Go up and bring me little Teddy Robinson's shoes," I snapped. "It won't compromise you to go into his room, I daresay."