Simply according to Conny's crisp version, "Percy has flown the track again!"
* * * * *
After a pleasant little luncheon with the Senator, Conny sent a telegram to her husband that she would meet him at the station on the arrival of a certain train from Albany that evening, adding the one word, "urgent," which was a code word between them. Then she telephoned the office of The People's, but Cairy was not there, and he had not returned when later in the afternoon she telephoned again.
"Well," she mused, a troubled expression on her face, "perhaps it is just as well,—Tom might not be easy to manage. He's more exacting than Percy about some things." So while the cab was waiting to take her to the station, she sat down at her desk and wrote a note,—a brief little note:—
"DEAR TOM: I am just starting for the station to meet Percy. Something very important has come up, which for the present must change things for us all…. You know that we agreed the one thing we could not do would be to let our feelings interfere with our duties—to any one…. I don't know when I can see you. But I will let you know soon. Good-by. C."
"Give this to Mr. Cairy when he calls and tell him not to wait," she said to the maid who opened the door for her. Conny did not believe in "writing foolish things to men," and her letter of farewell had the brevity of telegraphic despatch. Nevertheless she sank into the corner of the cab wearily and closed her eyes on the brilliant street, which usually amused her as it would divert a child. "He'll know sometime!" she said to herself. "He'll understand or have to get along without understanding!" and her lips drew together. It was a different world to-night from that of the day before; but unhappy as she was she had a subtle satisfaction in her willingness and her ability to meet it whatever side it turned towards her.
The train was a halfhour late, and as she paced the court slowly, she realized that Cairy had come to the house,—he was always prompt these days,—had received the note, and was walking away, reading it,—thinking what of her? Her lips tightened a trifle, as she glanced at the clock. "He will go to Isabella's," she said to herself. "He likes Isabelle." She knew Cairy well enough to feel that the Southerner could not long endure a lonely world. And Conny had a tolerant nature; she did not despise him for going where he could find amusement and comfort; nor did she think his love less worth having. But she bit her lip as she repeated, "He will go to Isabelle." If Percy wanted to know the extent of his wife's devotion to their married life, their common interests, he should have seen her at this moment. As the train drew in, she had already thought, "But he will come back—when it is possible."
She met her husband with a frank smile.
"You'll have to take me somewhere to dinner," she drawled. "There isn't any at home,—besides I want to talk at once. Glad to see me?"
When they were finally by themselves in a small private room of a restaurant where Conny loved to go with her husband,—"because it seems so naughty,"—she said in answer to his look of inquiry: "Percy, I want you to take me away—to Europe, just for a few weeks!"