Just then I was determined that my companion should not stray back to the wreck, and to that end I was determinedly facetious.
“Do you know that it is Sunday?” she asked suddenly, “and that we are actually ragged?”
“Never mind that,” I retorted. “All Baltimore is divided on Sunday into three parts, those who rise up and go to church, those who rise up and read the newspapers, and those who don’t rise up. The first are somewhere between the creed and the sermon, and we need not worry about the others.”
“You treat me like a child,” she said almost pettishly. “Don’t try so hard to be cheerful. It—it is almost ghastly.”
After that I subsided like a pricked balloon, and the remainder of the ride was made in silence. The information that she would go to friends in the city was a shock: it meant an earlier separation than I had planned for. But my arm was beginning again. In putting her into a cab I struck it and gritted my teeth with the pain. It was probably for that reason that I forgot the gold bag.
She leaned forward and held out her hand. “I may not have another chance to thank you,” she said, “and I think I would better not try, anyhow. I cannot tell you how grateful I am.” I muttered something about the gratitude being mine: owing to the knock I was seeing two cabs, and two girls were holding out two hands.
“Remember,” they were both saying, “you have never met me, Mr. Blakeley. And—if you ever hear anything about me—that is not—pleasant, I want you to think the best you can of me. Will you?”
The two girls were one now, with little flashes of white light playing all around. “I—I’m afraid that I shall think too well for my own good,” I said unsteadily. And the cab drove on.
CHAPTER XI.
THE NAME WAS SULLIVAN
I had my arm done up temporarily in Baltimore and took the next train home. I was pretty far gone when I stumbled out of a cab almost into the scandalized arms of Mrs. Klopton. In fifteen minutes I was in bed, with that good woman piling on blankets and blistering me in unprotected places with hot-water bottles. And in an hour I had a whiff of chloroform and Doctor Williams had set the broken bone.