“You did want me after all, didn’t you, Dick? I was sure you would, although I was just a little bit nervous, while your man kept me waiting at the door. You are a dear boy, and I am going to learn to be very fond of you, and just as soon as you get that horrid divorce I will marry you, if you still want me.”
“And until then, Lola?” He looked at her with a growing passion, as he realized how completely she was putting herself into his power.
“It may be a month or two. I’ll hurry things all I can, but until then what are you going to do? Let’s have this settled right now. I won’t always be in as decent a mood as I seem to be in to-night. What are you going to do until then?”
“I am going to stay with you, Dick.” She looked at him, blushing slightly, but without a sign of nervousness. “No, please!” As he stepped toward her to take her in his arms. “I have thought it all out very carefully. If I come to you it must be on my own conditions.”
“It shall be, Lola; anything you want you shall have.”
“I want you to take me away, to-night, before any of them can find me. I don’t want to come back to New York until after we are married. I will go with you anywhere you want to take me, but not alone. You must find some woman who will go with us.”
“Mrs. Harlan,” he suggested promptly. “She’s rather hard up just now, and she’d be glad of a little trip. She could get away to-morrow, I’m sure, if we made a point of it; not to-night; no woman on earth could do that.”
“Ask her, and if she will go, ask her if she would be willing to take me to her house to-night. John will come here, I am sure of that, but he would not dare to go there before morning, and if he comes then we can find a way to avoid him. You can take us there in a cab; then go to an hotel for the night.”
“Do you think I am afraid of John Dorris?”
“I think you are very foolish if you are not,” she answered. “John is a quiet man, but if he were to find us here in this room together, he would kill you!”