“What’s his nibs been saying to you now?” she asked.
I shook my head. Somehow I didn’t feel like confiding even in Lu this night.
“Look here, Marion,” she said, “I met an old admirer of yours as I came here to-night, and he asked me to try and get you to go with him and a friend to a little supper. He said you knew his friend—that he’d bought some pictures from you. His name’s Davidson. Folks do say that his father was the Prince of Wales and that he got fresh with one of the Davidson girls that time when he was in Canada and their father entertained him, and they pass this Davidson off as a younger son of the family. I told Colonel Stevens I’d do what I could. Now, I saw that Bertie getting into a sleigh all rigged up in evening clothes and with that Mrs. Marbridge and her sister. Folks are saying he’s paying attention to the latter lady. I said to myself, when I saw him: ‘What’s sass for the goose is sass for the gander.’ Marion, you’re a fool to sit moping here, while he is enjoying himself with other women.”
I jumped to my feet.
“I’ll go with you, Lu—anywhere. I’m crazy to go with you. Let’s hurry up.”
“All right, get dressed while I ’phone the Colonel. He said he’d be waiting at the St. James Club for an answer for the next half-hour.”
I have a very dim remembrance of that evening. We were in some restaurant, and the drink was cold and yet it burned my throat like fire. I had never tasted any liquor before, except the light wine that the Count sometimes sparingly gave me. I heard some one saying—I think it was Mr. Davidson:
“She’s a hell of a girl to take out for a good time.”
I said I felt ill, and Lu took me out to get the air. She said she would be back soon. But once out there, I conceived a passionate desire to return to my room and I ran away in the street from Lu.
As I opened my door a feeling of calamity seemed to come over me. It must have been nearly twelve o’clock, and I had never been out so late before, not even with Reggie.