"I thought, my dear, you had gone off for a jolly little jaunt," said Mr. Bloodgood, without variation in the provoking evenness of his voice.
She came up the steps to his level, and acknowledged his presence with an inclination of her head.
"I intended to," she said, in the same ceremonious tone. "But I was so alarmed at the news from Wall Street that I did not wish to leave you at such a time."
"Indeed? I am quite touched," he answered, with perfect solemnity. "You are always so thoughtful, my dear."
She entered. He followed her as though shutting off all retreat, and the gorgeous flunky who had run out disappeared, too. To Beecher, with all the anguish of the scene at Rita Kildair's still vivid in his mind, it was as though he had seen a living woman enter her appointed tomb.
"Where shall I drive, sir?" said the driver.
"Anywhere!" he cried furiously.
But at the end of five minutes he emerged from the stupor into which he had been plunged, the somber horror rolling away like scudding storm-clouds. A new emotion—the inevitable personal application—broke over him like a ray of light.
"To be loved like that—" he thought suddenly, with a feeling of envy. "Terrible, terrible—and yet how marvelous!"
He gave directions to drive to Nan Charters' with a new curiosity in his soul—the inevitable personal emotion that, strangely enough, even against his will, dominated all the somber melancholy which this reverse of a glittering medal had brought him.