An interrupted night

by Pansy

Whitney did not oversleep. He arose far earlier than he had set himself to be about. He tried to eat some breakfast, but it was as dust and ashes in his mouth. He went out to walk, but the exercise was merely mechanical. He did not see the buildings he passed, nor notice anybody on the street. He was going over the probable program for the morning, trying to decide which thing he should do first.

If he went to the train to meet Mrs. Sheldon, he would be late in getting to Fifth Avenue when Marguerite would be likely to be arriving. If he went to Fifth Avenue first, he would be too late to meet the train. He finally decided that it was more important to find Marguerite than her mother, for the mother would communicate with Mary at home as soon as she located in a hotel and if he found Marguerite, he could telephone to Mary and have little trouble in locating Mrs. Sheldon afterward. Marguerite was of course the first consideration.

He had no trouble in finding the number on the avenue that had been indicated in Marguerite's note, and was somewhat reassured, but also not a little troubled to find the name, "R. H. Oliver, Manager," in gold letters on the rich glass of the heavy mahogany door. Just what effect would it have upon the girl who had taken this wild midnight journey to prove there was no such person? He pondered this as he sought out the janitor and asked a few questions about the usual hour of opening the offices in that building.

He was still pondering it as he set out to walk a regular beat, up the avenue, across the street, down the avenue, across and back again, varying it occasionally by a quick detour into one of the side streets where he turned about and returned the other way. He did not care to be noticed, as he kept his anxious vigil. As the minutes passed into an hour and then dropped into long minutes again, his heart sank with the fear lest after all somehow he had missed her. Perhaps she had come down to the office building ahead of him, or perhaps she had looked up the name in the city directory, discovered that it really was there, and had changed her course. Why had he not thought of that before? Yet what else could he have done than he had done? He had no clue but this, and must follow it to its reasonable end.

There were not many people on that part of the avenue so early, and he had no difficulty in getting a good look at each one. He felt reasonably certain that she could not have got by since he had arrived, so he tramped back and forth like a lion in a cage, not daring to go beyond the bounds he had set himself lest somehow she escape him. The thought that was aching into his heart now was what possible connection could there be between this man Oliver and the fellow Keller whom his girl had declared her intention of marrying after she had proved that there was no such person as Oliver?

A dim possibility was stealing through his mental turbulence, but he rejected such an explanation of the situation, as unworthy of a decent man to think about another, even about one whom he distrusted. Yet again and again it recurred. Had someone been trying to make his little girl see that the man with whom she seemed to be infatuated was unworthy of her? Had she set out to disprove what they had told her? It must be something of that sort of course, but what?

By the time that he had tramped nearly two hours away in anxious watching, he was in a mood to wish he could get his hands on this Keller man and give him a good thrashing. He felt more and more confident that he deserved it, even though he might be none of the unworthy kinds of villain that his imagination had been conjuring.

It was still five minutes to the hour the janitor had mentioned as opening time for offices when he finally tramped back to the building and entered the elevator. He had considered staying outside in the street till he saw Marguerite arrive, but rejected the idea as futile. She would be very likely to see him if he came too near, and perhaps evade him, for it was most likely that she wanted none of her friends with her on this expedition, else she would surely have confided in her mother.

He had considered also secreting himself somewhere in the hallway, at a good vantage point to watch for her, if there were such a hiding place, but rejected that idea also, because if anything was going to happen, he wanted to be there to see what it was. He felt that it was his right to understand the case, seeing he was going to try to help Marguerite. How else could he know whether or not he might be intruding where even angels should not tread? No, he must be in the office, and well placed where she would not notice him, or he might never find out whether he even had a right to try to help her. He must fathom this mystery himself. It was not anything Marguerite's mother could tell him, else he felt sure she would have called for him in the middle of the night even, to accompany her and help her in her trouble. That it was a terrible trouble to the mother he had no doubt.

He had a bad half minute when several young women came hurriedly into the hall and rushed for the elevator. Perhaps she was among them, and this would be by no means the place he had planned to meet Marguerite, in the elevator!