“Ethel,” Mrs. Ogden was out of breath from her efforts to call to them over the heads of the crowd. “Mr. Patterson will take you over to the Willard in his car.”
“Oh, no,” Ethel shrank back. Her endurance had reached the breaking point, and she could not face another interview with James Patterson. “I—I—have a splitting headache, Cousin Jane; could you let me go directly home?”
“And not go to the Willard!” ejaculated Mrs. Ogden in consternation. “Why, Ethel, Secretary and Mrs. Thomas and their guests are to have supper with us. You simply must come.”
“Suppose you walk over to the Willard with me,” suggested Norcross. “The air may do you good, Miss Ogden.” And Ethel flashed him a grateful smile as she took his arm, but at the theater entrance Patterson joined them.
“Aren’t you coming with me, Ethel?” he asked.
Norcross answered for her. “Miss Ogden has a bad headache, and we are walking over to the hotel in the hopes that the exercise may do her good.”
“But the Willard is several blocks off,” exclaimed Patterson, aghast. “And in that light dress, Ethel—better let me take you both over in my limousine; I have room for you, Professor.”
“Very well,” Norcross chose to overlook the incivility which accompanied the invitation to himself. “I did not realize that the hotel was so far from the theater, Miss Ogden. Suppose we ride over with Patterson.”
Ethel acquiesced wearily. So long as she did not have to talk alone to Patterson it was immaterial to her how she reached the hotel. Except that she felt under obligation to her cousins she would not have attended the supper. She was grateful for the silence of the two men during their short ride to the hotel, and when she entered Peacock Alley she had regained control of herself.
It was close on two in the morning when Ethel reached her bedroom, and without undressing, threw herself across the bed and closed her eyes. She lay there an hour or more, inexplicably weary in mind and body; then dragged herself upright as the clock on the mantel chimed four. She removed her gown and slipped on a heavy silk wrapper and made her way to her desk. There was one thing she must do before more hours passed, and taking up a pen she wrote: