Burton glanced at his watch, compared it with the smug-faced clock over the desk, and strode to the steps. But again he turned:
“I sent a box of flowers here for the young lady this morning; did she get them?”
“No, sir, they came just after she’d left. They’re here; I was going to send them back to the florist’s.”
That was a wild race against time! With the long box of roses between his knees, one hand on his watch, and a cigarette hanging unlighted from his lips, Burton sat like a stern-faced Fate and was whirled from the hotel to the wharf in what was practically one long bump. When the horse was pulled back on his haunches before the pier entrance there was no need to ask questions: a stream of persons whose handkerchiefs still hung from their hands was emerging into the hot sunlight.
With a groan Burton threw himself back against the cushions.
“Never before in the history of ocean travel has a steamship left on time,” he muttered.
“But to-day—oh, damn!”
“Where to, sir?” asked the driver, his red, perspiring face glowing above the opened trap. Burton gulped, and then gave his office address. The wearied horse and creaking hansom crept dejectedly uptown again through close, furnace-like streets and over pavements that threw the heat upward with intolerable intensity. Burton thought of the open, wind-swept ocean and cursed weakly. When the hansom came to a stop in front of the narrow, white-marble monstrosity on the tenth floor of which was his office, he paid three prices to the driver and strode towards the entrance. The cabman called after him,—
“Hi, sir, you’ve forgotten your flowers!”