Then she was silent, deliciously cradled in her own thoughts, convincing herself that what yesterday had seemed but a faint dream was now a possibility, visualizing, in dormant balmy seas, an island all white and green, a fairy island as enchanted as the kingdoms which each day she constructed for Betty's wondering eyes. To be Mrs. Massingale, to enter into all the irksome routine of formal society—no, that had no appeal! A year or a season in a world of her own, a great romance, a love that would sweep them up like the magnificently reckless storms of passion which came to her over the inspired motives of Tristan and Isolde—that, and then a life of work and accomplishment, a career.
All at once, as the skidding automobile slowed and sloughed about a corner, a group under a lamp-post, black and silhouetted against the snow, sprang across the fragile fabric of her dreams out of the horrid world of reality—a figure that scattered all selfish thoughts and overwhelmed her with the power of a great remorse. She leaned forward precipitately, beating on the window for Brennon to stop, and even in the moment of her disorder, true to the Salamander instinct, she explained hastily:
"A cousin—oh, dear! he's been on a spree for months; the family's distracted. Stop! Wait—I must get hold of him. No, no; let me out!"
And to Ida's amazement, opening the door, heedless of the slush on her delicate feet, of the bitter night, of what any one would think,—obeying only an irresistible cry from her soul,—Dodo had sprung out and run to the sidewalk, where the ghost of Lindaberry, come up from the abyss, was standing embattled, torn and disheveled, magnificently crazed, and at his feet a policeman, knocked out.
CHAPTER XXIII
Doré went to Lindaberry, without a thought of fear, crying his name:
"Garry, it's I—Dodo!"
He turned, striving to recognize her through the blurred phantasmagoria of the week.
"Who?"