“Thanks.” John Hale swung around and caught Latimer by the shoulder. Until that moment he had ignored the presence of the little stockbroker.
“Drive out to Chevy Chase, Frank,” he urged. “Come, man, don’t keep me waiting,” and, not heeding Latimer’s remonstrances, he hurried him toward his car. Then, as the latter hung back with the reiterated statement that he had an important business engagement, he interrupted him with an oath.
“Cut it out, Frank,” John Hale spoke between clenched teeth. “I’ll explain later; jump in.” Scarcely waiting for Latimer to do so, he climbed in behind the wheel and, turning the car up Connecticut Avenue, he speeded up that thoroughfare.
Latimer rode in perturbed silence, occasionally stealing a glance at his companion’s set, stern features. He had followed John Hale in his college days with doglike fidelity, and the habit had clung through their years of faithful friendship. As the car left the city limits behind and tore along the road leading to the fashionable suburb of Chevy Chase, Latimer broke the protracted silence.
“What’s to pay, John?” he asked.
John Hale waited until they had overtaken a trolley, then slowed down the car’s speed almost to a crawl.
“God knows!” he responded, and his voice was not quite steady. “Frank, I—I’m miserable—miserable,” and Frank, after one glance at his face, forebore to question further.
Mrs. Hale, from the window of her limousine, watched John Hale’s abrupt departure with astonishment not unmixed with resentment.
“Upon my word, Judith, your uncle grows more impossible every day,” she remarked, and, meeting with no comment from her daughter, she picked up the speaking tube and called to her chauffeur, “Home.”