"Have it your own way, but I'll be back at eight with a regular honest-to-goodness warrant." The officer nodded and walked out heavily.
When she was alone again Lilas felt as if her knees would give way. For the first time she realized that she had no single friend to whom she could turn or in whose assistance she could put faith. Before the plain-clothes man she had maintained a pretense of firmness, but it had been mere bravado, for in her soul she had known those documents to be authentic. Their contents proved them so, and, now that the police knew all, resistance was plainly futile.
During her last talk with Bob Wharton Lilas had felt unbounded confidence in her ability to go through with her plans, come what might, but now the mere knowledge that those plans were known changed everything. In common with all evil-doers, Lilas entertained an exaggerated distrust of the law and a keen fear of its trickeries. The fact that she had been betrayed, the fact that she now had the open hostility of the police to combat, convinced her that the game was up.
As she pondered the situation anger at the treachery of her confederates grew and caused her to forget her own intended treachery to them. Even while she was defying the officer she had begun to reconcile herself to the idea of flight, and now she set about her preparations.
Four hours! Well, they had given her time enough. Much could be done in four hours. Eight o'clock would see her well out from under the shadow of the law. The Law! Lilas sneered as she reflected that the law invariably shielded the rich and prosperous while it oppressed the poor and the needy.
Of late her periods of independence from cocaine were becoming shorter and of less frequent occurrence, and before she had proceeded far with her packing she found herself badly in need of stimulation. Her resistance was running low, it seemed. That splendid recklessness which had sustained her when she flung her demand at Bob was entirely gone now; she was oddly nervous and unstrung, so she turned to the white powders.
Their effect was prompt and pleasant, as always; they enabled her to lay vigorous hold once more upon her scattered faculties. As she flung her belongings into her trunk her first black regrets and disappointments began to lighten, and she found herself looking at the matter more philosophically. After all, things were never quite hopeless; she had played for big stakes and lost—through no fault of her own, but through the treachery of others. Well, this was not her first defeat, and certainly it would not be her last opportunity. She would pretend to yield; she would go away and wait. Yes, that was best. She could always return, and so long as her money lasted, so long as those blessed powders were available, she was assured of bodily and mental comfort at least. Meanwhile no one could rob her of her secret, and sometime, somehow it could be coined into money. Bob Wharton, John Merkle, the Hammon women, through their influence with the police, might exile her from New York, might hound her from place to place, but so long as she retained that secret they were all more or less in her power and could not deny her at least a comfortable living. She even smiled contemptuously as she looked back upon the way she had fooled Bob Wharton and the concern he had shown for Lorelei.
Then of a sudden Lilas awoke to the fact that she disliked—hated—Bob's wife. It seemed as if she had always hated her. Perhaps it was because of Lorelei's beauty or her superior ways, or—yes, because of her clean soul that nothing had been able to smirch. Character—what was it but hypocrisy, or a luxury upon which some people prided themselves? From Lorelei, Lilas's thoughts wandered naturally to Jim, thence to his companions, and finally to Max Melcher. One and all, those men, at the first hint of danger to themselves, had thrown her over and sought protection. That was man-like. It pleased her at this moment to call down punishments upon them and to imagine the forms those punishments would take if she possessed the power to inflict them. She owed those fellows something, and in particular she owed Max a grudge, for the whole scheme had been his.
The cocaine was working swiftly now; Lilas had reached the stage of exaggerated self-regard; her enmity toward Melcher grew with unnatural rapidity. She had evened more than one score in the past, she mused, why not even this one? In Jarvis Hammon's case, for instance, she had taken the law into her own hands and had exacted payment for a wrong that most people would have considered dead to vengeance. Truly, that had been a revenge! For a long time the memory of that night's events had been almost intolerable: the picture of that dim-lit library, of the staring, stricken face of her victim had more than once filled Lilas with such horror that she had taken refuge in double doses of cocaine; but now, strangely enough, she felt no repugnance whatever in looking back upon it. On the contrary, she was thrilled by the remembrance and exulted in her act without restraint. She fancied at this moment that she could feel the cold contact of the revolver against her palm, the leap of the exploding weapon, the fierce triumph that had flamed through her when Hammon had halted in his tracks, then withered and crumpled as his wound took effect. That had been an instant worth all the pain and risk it cost! She lived again through the white heat of it, but it left her unsatisfied.
There were others who had wronged her and who deserved the same fate as Hammon—Max Melcher, for instance. Max had been her evil counselor in all things, he had always used her as a tool, and now, like a tool which he no longer had use for, he cast her aside.