CHAPTER XVII
Hayden was half ill when he left Ydo's apartment. He felt a curious stifling sensation, a longing for air and motion and so strong was this feeling that he decided to dismiss the motor and walk home; but he had proceeded only a block or so, when he noticed an electric brougham draw up to the sidewalk. His heart gave a quick throb for he saw that Marcia's chauffeur was driving; but a moment later, his hopes were turned to disappointment, for instead of Marcia's dear face, the somewhat worn and worried countenance of her mother gazed out.
The moment she caught a glimpse of him, she brightened perceptibly and with a quick motion summoned him. Almost mechanically he made his way across the crowded sidewalk and took the hand she extended.
"Oh, Mr. Hayden," with a plaintive quaver in her voice, "won't you drive about a little with me? I must talk to some one. I must have advice and—and the sympathy that I know your generous heart will be only too ready to give. It may be unconventional to ask you, and I may be taking up far too much of your valuable time. You will tell me frankly if this is so, will you not?"
Hayden murmured a polite protest, and expressed his appreciation of the privilege in a few words, scarcely conscious of what he was saying, and then sank into the seat beside her, inwardly lamenting his stupidity that he had so impulsively dismissed his waiting taxicab.
"So unconventional!" again murmured the lady as he took his seat, "but then, I am all impulse and intuition. As Mr. Oldham has so often said to me, 'I would rather depend on your intuitions than on the reasoning of the wisest statesmen.' Very, very absurd of him, and yet so dear and in one sense, true."
"True in all senses," said Hayden with the gallantry expected of him. This Venus Victrix was not so critical as to cavil at the manifest effort in his tones. Let it be forced or spontaneous, a compliment was a compliment to her.
"Mr. Hayden, Robert, if I may call you so, I am very, very unhappy this morning, and—and I have no one, no one to console or comfort me."
Hayden felt a quick impulse of pity, for there was that in her speech and appearance which convinced him that she really was fretting over something, and he saw that under her careful powder and rouge her face looked worn and worried.