Merriam took a cigarette and lighted it and again walked up and down. His thoughts now ran unbidden upon Mollie June. Images of her crowded his mind: Mollie June rosy and bright-eyed as he had seen her last at the dinner table in the alcove of the Peacock Cabaret; Mollie June by his "sick" bed, standing over him after he had impulsively declared his love, her hand hovering above his hair, tears upon her face, turning bravely away from him; Mollie June above the roses, as he had first seen her that morning--was it only that morning?--lifting the wet stems from the bowl; Mollie June confronting Mayor Black, refusing in angered innocence to leave the room; Mollie June in the Peacock Cabaret the night before; Mollie June in the front row in "Senior Algebra" back in Riceville. Ah, he did belong to Mollie June, heart and soul. There was no doubt of that, and all the Jennies in the world were of no account whatever.
So it was a young man in a very laudable frame of mind indeed--waiving the fact that Mollie June was a married woman!--whom Rockwell presently bundled into the taxi he had summoned. Father Murray was already inside. Rockwell followed, leaving Simpson to speak to the chauffeur.
It puzzled Merriam to find Simpson thus placed in command, as it were, and his thoughts came back to the present adventure. He listened closely.
"Stop first at Rankin's Hardware Store," Simpson said to the chauffeur, "on Forty-Third Street."
In a couple of minutes, it seemed, they stopped before Rankin's emporium. Simpson alone descended. The other three remained in the taxicab, Rockwell openly smiling at the puzzled inquiry on Merriam's face but vouchsafing no enlightenment. Merriam would not ask questions.
The hardware shop was closed, but there was a light within and a man. Simpson pounded at the door till he gained admittance, and in a few minutes returned bearing--a small stepladder!
"What on earth----?" The words were almost starting from Merriam's lips, but he managed to swallow them, and listened again for Simpson's direction to the driver.
It was an address: "612 Dalton Place." That meant nothing to Merriam.
Again a brief drive, Merriam laboriously cogitating, with bewildered eyes on the small ladder--an affair of some six steps,--which Simpson had brought into the cab and was holding upright between them.
Father Murray asked the question which Merriam had so manfully (and youthfully) repressed: