He explained to the driver the route to Grinden Hall, and they set forth.
Marie Louise had a dilemma of her own. Lady Clifton-Wyatt had had the last word, and it had been an invitation to Davidge to call on her. Worse yet, he had accepted it. Lady Clifton-Wyatt’s purpose was, of course, to rob Marie Louise of this last friend. Perhaps the wretch had a sentimental interest in Davidge, too. She was a widow and a man-grabber; she still had a tyrannic beauty and a greed of conquest. Marie Louise was determined that Davidge should not fall into her clutches, but she could hardly exact a promise from him to stay away.
The taxi was crossing the aqueduct bridge before she could brave the point. She was brazen enough to say, “You’ll accept Lady Clifton-Wyatt’s invitation to tea, of course?”
“Oh, I suppose so,” said Davidge. “No American woman 136 can resist a lord; so how could an American man resist a Lady?”
“Oh!”
This helpless syllable expressed another defeat for Marie Louise. When they reached the house she bade him good night without making any arrangement for a good morrow, though Davidge held her hand decidedly longer than ever before.
She stood on the portico and watched his cab drive off. She gazed toward Washington and did not see the dreamy constellation it made with the shaft of the Monument ghostly luminous as if with a phosphorescence of its own. She felt an outcast indeed. She imagined Polly hurrying back to ask questions that could not be dodged any longer. She had no right to defend herself offensively from the rightful demands of a friend and hostess. Besides, the laws of hospitality would not protect her from Polly’s temper. Polly would have a perfect right to order her from the house. And she would, too, when she knew everything. It would be best to decamp before being asked to.
Marie Louise whirled and sped into the house, rang for the maid, and said:
“My trunks! Please have them brought down––or up, from wherever they are, will you?”
“Your trunks, miss!”